


Always Been An Off Color

by thelittlemerms



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Divergent from Wanted, Gen, Homophobic Language, I'll give warnings at the tops of chapters when those types of things come up, Pink Lars, Spoilers for Episode: s05e01-04 Wanted, Trans Character, Trans Lars (Steven Universe), discussions of transphobia and dysphoria, post wanted fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-11-18 16:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11294484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlemerms/pseuds/thelittlemerms
Summary: Lars finds that he feels like he belongs with the off colors more than he has anywhere else before, and has many challenges in store for him in this fight he never asked to be a part of.





	1. Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars gets to know the off colors.

Right after Steven left, Lars began feeling sick to his stomach. As long as Steven had been with him, he had felt fine. But now, he was alone, the only human on a planet he barely knew, stuck depending on people he barely knew.

  
Though he had died for them. That had to count for something, right?

  
Still, Lars had never felt comfortable depending on others, and he felt even worse at the thought that he could be a burden. But these gems had seemed determined to help him, and he was determined to return the favor. Unfortunately, he hadn't the slightest clue how to do that.

  
"So, um, does anyone have any idea how to get to Earth, exactly?" Was what he finally asked.

  
"I think we need a ship." "We need to find a ship." said Rutile.

  
"But how in the world are we going to get our hands on a ship? We'll be caught!" Rhodonite said in her normal panicked tone of voice.

  
"I guess we have to steal one?" said Lars, his voice raising in uncertainty, turning the statement into a question. Rutile gasped in syncopation, but Lars continued talking. "How common are ships on this planet, anyway? Where would we even look for one?"

  
"They only exist where they are needed," drawled Fluorite. Or, she didn’t actually drawl, but Lars thought her voice reminded him of a southern accent, like he would be offered sweet tea at any moment. "But they are needed many places. The difficulty is not in finding a ship, it will be in actually boarding the ship and departing, all without being discovered in doing so."

  
Lars gulped. "Right. Are ships usually heavily guarded? With gems or robonoids?"

  
"It depends - on the location." Rutile said, one twin finishing the other's sentence. Lars found Rutile to be perhaps the most interesting of his new companions for this reason. Clearly their minds were connected, but he was already starting to pick out a slight difference in personality, and he was pretty sure one head was slightly dominant over the other.

  
Right. Focus. Stranded on an alien planet. "If we find one just guarded with robonoids, I might have the best chance at sneaking past than all of us. If there are gems it will be harder but, I guess we can cross that bridge when we get there?”

  
“What’s a – bridge?” asked Rutile.

  
"I believe, we should get away from the capital," said Padparadscha, joining the conversation. Lars felt slightly guilty that he had almost forgotten she was there. He made a mental note to remember that she had important things to say…albeit slightly delayed things.

  
"Why do you say that, Padparadscha?" Rhodonite asked. “We’ve always been fine here before.”

  
“No, they know we’re here.” Fluorite said. “We have to start moving.”

  
Everyone nodded and muttered in agreement.

  
"Okay," Rhodonite said, though she still seemed unsure. "Let's go!"

  
And that's exactly what they did. It turned out, the cavern they were in wasn't as closed off as Lars had originally thought. There were tunnels connecting the Kindergarten they were in to presumably, other Kindergartens, though Lars couldn't say for sure. He didn't know exactly where they were going, but he was just glad to be on the move. it made him feel less nervous.

  
"So, um," Lars said, trying to figure out the best way to start a conversation,. "tell me about yourselves. How long have you guys been down here?" Lars mentally kicked himself for his own comment. It probably wasn’t polite to ask how old a Gem was.

  
"Some of us, all our lives," said Fluorite.

  
"Yes I got that much I just mean...what are your stories?" It turned out Lars wasn't any less socially awkward on Homeworld than he was on Earth.

  
"Well, the first time I fused with...well, myself..." began Rhodonite. "it was in secret. Pearl and Ruby worked for a Morganite – they’re like a disciplinary arm of the Diamonds, on planets that the Diamonds aren’t bothered to go to. So we traveled to a lot of different colonies. Which was pretty fun, actually. We had already been closer than we should have been, but managed to keep our relationship secret for the most part. We probably weren't as discrete as we thought we were, but if anyone noticed they didn't say anything. We had heard stories - whispered myths really - that it was possible for gems of different kinds to fuse. We figured, what was the harm in seeing if we could do it? But after we fused we - I, wanted to exist. So I started fusing in less and less discrete places and, eventually, our Morganite saw me. I didn't know what to do, so I ran. I was by myself for awhile, but I wasn't really by myself, so it was okay. Then eventually I found Fluorite, and knowing I wasn't the only one, it kinda made it better, you know?"

  
Lars put his hand on the gem’s shoulder. He didn’t know if this gesture was as comforting to gems as it was to humans, but it was the only thing he could think of to do.

  
“Oh, Lars.” Came the voice of the small gem who was walking behind them. “Padparadschas aren’t supposed to exist. I was supposed to be a Sapphire. They can see glimpses into the future. I cannot.” Something about what she said seemed familiar to Lars, but he couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps something Steven had said at one point over the years? Regardless, Lars felt for the little gem. Lars couldn’t see the future either, but at least he had never been expected to.

  
“Let’s see if I got this straight,” Lars said. “Gems are made for a specific purpose, and if they don’t fulfill that purpose, they could be shattered. And no interracial dating.”

  
Rutile tilted both heads in unison. “Interracial - dating?” And Lars realized he had made a poor word choice.

  
“Er…like gems of different kinds can’t date.”

  
“What’s dating?” Rhodonite asked, revealing to Lars that the miscommunication went even further than he thought.

  
“Well on Earth, if you’re romantically interested in someone, you hang out with them I guess, and go to the movies or dinner and stuff. Though I guess if you don’t need to eat, you wouldn’t do that. But the point is, you get to know them.”

  
“That doesn’t really happen,” Fluorite said. “But it is a lovely idea.”

  
“And I guess if you both decide you like each other enough, you might get married and have kids…which is like, you live together and also make little humans that are part you and part the other person?”

  
“So like a fusion?” Rhodonite seemed excited by the prospect.

  
“Well, not really. Because you don’t become your kids…you’re still you, and you can have more than one kid, and they’d be different. And you don’t have to have kids, you might just chose to live together and do stuff together.” Explaining human culture was harder than Lars thought it would be. He wasn’t even sure what he needed to explain. “And not everyone can have kids, either,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

  
“Technically…” Rhodonite said, speaking almost as slowly as Fluorite. “That kind of thing doesn’t even happen with gems of the same kind. Always being fused, always being together…that’s not normal. Though close relationships between gems of the same kind are more accepted. But gems can’t do things just because they want to. It has to be for a purpose.”

  
Lars was stunned. The idea of a society that discouraged dating entirely, that seemed from the sound of it to even discourage _friendships_ …it was horrifying to him.  
"I guess I don't know a lot about gems, not even the ones on Earth," he admitted softly.

  
"How many Gems are on earth?" "Tell us about them." prompted Rutile.

  
Lars was glad for a change in topic, but he genuinely didn’t know the answer.

  
“I only know of three, but that can’t possibly be right…those are just the ones that live with Steven. I’m sure…I’m sure there are others.” Though, if he was entirely honest with himself, he wasn’t actually sure at all.

  
“Well just tell us about the ones you do know,” Fluorite encouraged.

  
The thing was, Lars wasn’t sure what all he knew. But he figured, best start with the basics. “Well, they for sure lived in Beach City a long time. Like since, before the city was founded. I saw a play about it.” He paused, unsure if they knew what a play was, but no one interrupted him to ask. “Anyway um…their names are Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl….and Steven.” Lars chuckled, remembering the song that Steven used to sing when he was little. Oh boy, was he missing the kid already?

  
Rhodonite scratched her head. “Garnet? I’ve never heard of that kind of gem before. Was she a gem made on Earth?”

  
Lars shrugged. “I’ve got no clue. To be honest, I’ve never asked.” What he didn’t say, but was eating away at the back of his mind, was the fact that he’d never, at least until now, actually cared. “I’m sure Steven could tell you more stuff about them anyway. There was that one gem that sucked up the ocean, and that weird hand in the sky -”

  
“What’s your story, Lars? Were you dating anyone on Earth?” Lars looked down at Padparadscha. She was behind in the conversation, but surprisingly not behind enough that it was an awkward throwback.

  
Or, it wouldn’t have been, if it weren’t for the topic at hand. Lars groaned. He should have seen this coming. He had been asking them plenty enough personal questions. But still. “I – kinda? Maybe? I mean I…guess?” Lars stuttered.

  
“Do you miss them?” Rhodonite asked.

  
The truth was, Lars did, but he suspected the reality of being so far away from home hadn’t quite hit him yet. “I mean yeah, but I’ll see her again soon.”

  
“That’s optimistic. Good for you,” was what Rhodonite said in response.

  
“But Lars is right,” said Fluorite, and she spoke slowly enough that Lars realized something. In all the time he’d been here, no one had referred to him as “she.” The Diamonds had referred to Steven as she, though that was because they thought he was Rose. But neither the Diamonds or off colors had misgendered Lars, he would have noticed if that happened. But no one had gendered him as male either, just referred to him as “Lars” in place of pronouns. He was deeply relieved that this was the case, but it seemed odd to him considering they didn’t even seem to have the concept of more than one gender. For that matter…Lars wasn’t entirely convinced they were speaking English. He had the suspicion he had pink translation magic in his head and the off colors were really speaking some form of gem language that only had one pronoun, that was translating in his brain to “she.” 

  
“Why don’t you call me she?” Lars found himself asking, “I’m not a she, so don’t start calling me one but...why? I never asked you to avoid it.”

  
Rhodonite shrugged. “You’re not a gem, why would we call you she?”

  
Lars didn’t know what answer he expected, but that definitely wasn’t it. “Um...we have the word “she” on Earth too, and it’s not a species exclusive word for us. Some humans are “she.” It’s just, I’m not.”

  
“I don’t get it.” Said Rhodonite, though a chastising glance from Rutile kept her from saying anything else.

  
Lars took a deep breath. They had all been so open about telling their stories; he might as well try to tell his as best as he could. “So on Earth there’s this thing that gems don’t seem to have, it’s called the gender binary. Basically, the way it works, is that if you’re born one way, people will tell you you’re a girl and use ‘she’ and ‘her’ to refer to you and expect you to look and dress and act a certain way. And if you’re born another way, they’ll say you’re a boy and use ‘he’ and ‘him’ to talk about you and say that you’re only supposed to look and dress and act like a boy. But the thing is, this is all kind of…stupid? Because you might be a boy but like to do girl things, or vice versa. Or you might be both, or neither, or…you might be like me, where at first everyone told you that you were a girl, but all along you knew you were a boy.”

Lars looked up at the off colors to see how they were taking this new information. If they were reacting badly, he couldn’t tell. What would a gem reacting badly even look like? “For awhile, I pretended I was a girl but eventually, I got fed up with it…so I changed the way I looked and acted so people would treat me like a boy. Some people accepted me as a boy, but others…still don’t. Some people purposely say I’m not really a boy to hurt me. So...yeah.” Somehow, Lars knew his cheeks were becoming pinker than they already were.

  
Rhodonite put her hand on Lars’ shoulder, mirroring his comforting gesture from earlier. “You really are one of us.”

  
Lars laughed. “Yeah. In a way, I guess I’ve always been an off color.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, gee! thanks for reading this chapter. I've written a lot for this fic already, so hopefully I'll be editing and updating pretty quickly but honestly who knows? certainly not me.  
> There are a lot of ideas I have about gem language and how gems and humans talk to each other perfectly fine most of the time, which is all summed up by Lars as "pink translation magic." If you ask me about it, I will go on for forever, or like at least for half an hour. But that is kind of outside of the purview of this fic.  
> Remember: every time you leave a comment, a Lapis gets her wings.
> 
> if you want more trans Lars stuff, I recommend reading Transcendent by writeside, tiny little tidbits which as far as I'm concerned, all happened to my version of Lars. (I'm going to try to recommend a fic at the end of every chapter, because there are a lot of good Lars fics)
> 
> [**Transcendent**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11058132) (2531 words) by [**writeside**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/writeside)  
> 


	2. Trees of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The off colors get some visitors, and Lars realizes he might be in over his head.  
> (Really though. How many people can even fit in there?)

Lars was having trouble adjusting his internal clock without having the sun to judge by, So he had no idea how much time had passed before Steven had come out of his hair again, though he guessed it couldn’t have been very long. Unfortunately, he was standing up, which turned out to be an even more precarious position than sitting down to suddenly have a small boy on top of your head. If it weren’t for Rutile catching him, Lars would have fallen directly on his face.

“Okay we’ve _got_ to come up with a way to keep me from falling next time.”

“Sorry.” Steven said, sliding down Lars’ back. “I’m not the only one coming through by the way, so hang tight.”

“Great.” Lars rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. He knelt down so whoever was coming through would have a better time of it than Steven.

First, a purple bird flew out of his hair. "Hey donut boy! What’s up?” shouted the bird. “The inside of your head is super weird.”

“Amethyst, cut it out! This is serious.” said Steven, and Lars watched as the bird shape-shifted into her more familiar humanoid form before him.

“Very interesting.” Flourite said.

“Hey look it’s another Garnet!” Amethyst said in the direction of Rhodonite.

“I’m not a Garnet.” replied Rhodonite.

“You’re not a Garnet, but you’re a Garnet.” Amethyst declared, as if that cleared everything up.

Next, came Pearl. “Are you sure I’m going to fit? Oh _hi_ Lars.“

“It’s a Pearl!” Rhodonite shrieked, forgetting her prior confusion in exchange for excitement.

“Oh, um, hi.” Pearl said, blushing when she saw Rhodonite. “Just a moment Lars, I’ll get down…from your head.”

A few seconds later, Ruby came out holding hands with Sapphire, who was trailing close behind.

“And a Ruby!” Rhodonite shrieked again, one pair of hands clasping together and the others waving in the air in joy.

Ruby cracked a grin in response, but she was primarily focused on helping Sapphire down.

“Oh…hi?” Lars said in confusion. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Steven just smiled at Lars. “You have.”

“They only unfused because we figured it might be a bit difficult getting through that poof of yours you call hair.” Amethyst explained.

And before Lars could say anything else, Garnet was materializing before his eyes.

“Garnet? You’re a fusion too!” Lars said in recognition. Garnet nodded.

Pearl laughed. “And to think, only a week ago you probably didn’t even know what a fusion was. Then again, a lot has happened to you in a short time.”

“Yeah,” Lars smirked. “Like being resurrected.”

Rhodonite was staring at Garnet in awe. “Garnet...you’re not just a fusion, you’re _that_ fusion!”

Garnet held her hands outward as if to say “guilty as charged.”

“Your fusion inspired the creation of so many other fusions, myself included!”

Garnet broke into a grin, which Lars realized was reminiscent of Ruby’s from just moments before. “My pleasure.”

Simultaneously, Padparadscha approached Garnet. “Everyone, I have wonderful news. Steven is going to bring us earth gems – an Amethyst, a Pearl, a Ruby and a Sapphire. Can you believe it, a Sapphire!”

Garnet looked down, and somehow her grin grew wider. “Oh, dear.” is all she said.

“Hey Pads, I think you’ve got a friend.” Lars said, nudging the little gem affectionately in the shoulder. In all the commotion, he was still down on the ground.

“Welcome, friends – we're Rutile,” said the twins, introducing themself. “This is Fluorite - Rhodonite - and Padparadscha.”

Garnet gave a salute. Pearl waved awkwardly. “Awesome!” shouted Amethyst.

By this point, Rhodonite was doing a happy dance. “Can I hug you?” She said in the direction of Garnet.

Garnet made a high pitched squeaking noise, though she didn’t manage to answer in the affirmative. Lars was flabbergasted. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Garnet so much as smile, and now he was witnessing her _fangirling_.

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea,” answered Pearl, in place of Garnet’s apparent inability to make coherent words. Rhodonite stopped dancing, but she was still smiling at them.

“Well, you can hug me!” Amethyst said, holding her arms out proudly. Rhodonite obliged, and soon enough Steven had run over to join them.

But before the group hug grew any larger, Garnet managed to regain her composure. “Everyone, I know it’s exciting meeting new gems, but we came to talk to Lars. Then we can talk to these gems.” Despite the fact that there was somewhere around ten voices in the room, Garnet’s was commanding. Everyone quieted down, knowing she had something important to say.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” Lars asked, standing up.

Pearl took a step towards Lars. “I think it’s important that we explain to you a little about Rose’s healing powers, and by extension, Steven’s.” Pearl steepled her hands and glanced around, as if looking for help. Lars didn’t say anything in response, simply waiting for Pearl to continue. At his name, Steven was drawn into the conversation, too.

Instead, Garnet was the one who provided an explanation: “We’ve been thinking on the subject a lot. What you must understand is the Crystal Gems have been on earth for thousands of years, and though we often kept our distance from humans, we also interacted with them plenty. Rose’s healing powers were always a bit of an enigma, but we did know, even from the beginning, that they at least sometimes worked on humans. None of us ever, however, saw her actually resurrect a human. I don’t think it even occurred to us as a possibility – she couldn’t repair gems past a certain point of damage, so it would make sense that the same would be true for humans.”

“So you all think I’m one of a kind, then?”

“Well…” Pearl said, glancing at Steven. “Greg was by no means the first human that Rose was…close with.”

Garnet nodded. “Yes. And given the fact that Steven resurrected the very first person that died in front of him by _accident_ , it’s hard to believe that the same couldn’t have happened to Rose. At the least there’s Lion, so we know she figured out she had this ability eventually.”

Garnet stopped, but Pearl voiced the sentiment she had left unsaid. “And don’t you think, the logical step after realizing you can bring things back to life on accident…is to start doing it on purpose?”

Steven’s eyes went wide as he realized what Pearl and Garnet was saying. “But, that doesn’t make any sense! How could mom have resurrected people?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t someone have noticed a bunch of pink humans walking around?” Lars asked, feeling more than a little overwhelmed.

Steven shook his head. “It’s not just that! There are only two trees in your head!”

“Wait… there are trees in my head?” Lars was trying not to freak out over all of this, but it was becoming difficult.

“Er…yeah. I guess not technically in your head, more like there’s a portal in your head that takes you to your tree.”

“How do you know it’s his tree?” Rhodonite asked.

“I don’t know it just…is.” Steven said.

“The trees do seem important.” Garnet acknowledged. “It’s possible that someone could be resurrected without a tree, but I doubt it. I feel fairly confident in saying that dimension just has your portal and Lion’s.”

“Like a tree of life.” quipped Lars.

“Yeah I guess…you could say that.” Garnet said. She briefly seemed to be contemplating something, but whatever it was she shook it off. Though with Garnet, it was always hard to tell.

“The more likely scenario is that there could be more than one ‘resurrection dimension’ so to speak.” Pearl said.

“Or, you know…” Amethyst began, but hesitated.

“Just say it, I can take it.” said Lars.

“Maybe Rose had a reason not to use that particular power. Rose had her secrets. Who knows what she knew about her powers that we don’t.”

“Amethyst, we don’t know why Rose -” Pearl started, but Amethyst cut her off.

“Dude, she was definitely hiding them from us. Why would she hide that? The only reason we even know about Lion is because _he_ found Steven.”

Lars shuddered. “That’s unsettling.”

“In any case,” Garnet said assertively, preventing any impending fight between Pearl and Amethyst before it began, “Lion has clearly lived a long time, but there’s no way of knowing how long he, or you, can live. We suspect your lifespan might be much like a gem’s, but we don’t know that for sure.”

Amethyst nodded. “Yeah dude. We aren’t even sure what can and can’t hurt you.”

Pearl was still glaring at Amethyst, but she looked away to add her opinion again. “For all we know, if Rose did in fact resurrect others, they could have died by now and that’s why we’ve found no sign of them."

“Ugh. Great.” said Lars, not feeling great at all.

“I think we should slow down with the theorizing,” said Padparadscha, indicating just how long this conversation had been going on. All three Crystal Gems looked down at her in surprise.

“Thanks, Pads.” whispered Lars. He looked at the Crystal Gems. “Look, I know that all of this is really important, but I only died a little while ago. And it’s not like I’m _going_ anywhere, so like just maybe…chill a little?”

Pearl sighed.

“Sorry, man.” said Amethyst.

Garnet walked up to Lars, and softly touched his arm. “Look, we know this is hard. You shouldn’t be here.” Lars glanced at Steven, who wouldn’t meet his eye. He clearly still felt guilty for dragging Lars into this, but Lars could hear guilt in Garnet’s voice, too. “This isn’t your fight, it’s ours. You’ve had to pay for our mistakes, and for that I’m truly sorry. But I promise, we will get you home.” Garnet was looking at him intently with all three of her eyes – which up until today he didn’t even know she had. Despite the seriousness of the situation, a funny thought occurred to him.

“Garnet, quick question.”

“Yes?”

“You’re a fusion, right?”

“…Yes.” Garnet seemed confused at the seemingly random change in topic.

“And you’ve lived on Earth for thousands of years?”

“Yes.”

“And one of your gems is a Sapphire.”

“Yes.”

“Are you the reason for the word Sapphic?”

Garnet’s lips twitched into a small smile, though she tried to keep a straight face. Garnet’s top eye closed for a moment, and Lars realized it was a wink.

“Yes.”

Lars stood up straighter, confidence newly renewed. “Okay, listen to me. Garnet, it is not your fault that I’m here,” he looked at Steven, “And it’s not your fault either, kid. And I promise all of you that this _is_ my fight now and that I will do whatever I can to help you guys protect the Earth or whatever it is you need me to do.”

Amethyst let out a loud cheer. “Woohoo! Way to go donut boy!”

Lars looked to the off colors, who had all been watching him in awe. “And I’m sure my new friends will help you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, this chapter was difficult. I tried to depict the chaos of having so many people in the room, but think it probably came out cleaner than how that would actually happen. Still, I'm quite happy with it anyway. 
> 
> Oh gosh...look at all the Lapises flying around now! They're so pretty! 
> 
> If you want more off colors + crystal gems, I recommend "Performing C.P.R." which had me fangirling just like Garnet.  
> If you want more Lars + the crystal gems in a slightly different context, I recommend "The Larsarus Effect" but be warned that I had to stop reading every other line I was sobbing so much. 
> 
> [**Performing C.P.R.**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11231454) (3581 words) by [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ampersandre)**Ampersandre**  
> [ **The Larsarus Effect**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11051382) (6175 words) by [**GrapieBee**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/GrapieBee)


	3. Birthstones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars has a lot to think about after the Crystal Gems visit, and he gives a pep talk to a new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been slightly edited since I first posted it. It's mostly the same, but with less typos and slightly more content.

The rest of the Crystal Gems’ visit had been a bit of a blur to Lars. Turns out when you put three fusions, four (five?) other gems, a half-gem, and a pink zombie in a cavern together, things could get kinda hectic. Lars tried to keep up with the conversation as best he could, but it was impossible. Garnet had to deal with attention from both Fluorite and Rhodonite, Rutile seemed to have taken a particular interest in Pearl, and Amethyst has basically adopted Pads. Lars did manage to pick up on a few important things - at one point the off colors had told the Crystal Gems that they planned on going to Metamorphis, whatever that meant. The gems seemed to agree with this decision, except for Amethyst, who had seemed as clueless as Lars as to where that was. Still, it was nice to have a name to put to where they were going. And it seemed he was right in saying the off colors would help - as far as he understood it, the Crystal Gems plan was to go on the defensive with as many gems as were willing to join them. They weren’t quite rebuilding Rose’s army, but there was strength in numbers.

“Why don’t you recruit a human army?” Lars had asked, which got him only blank stares and mumbled rejections. Something about this entire situation seemed _off_ to Lars – wasn’t going on the defensive exactly what the Crystal Gems had been doing all along? And look where that had gotten them.

Beyond that, the gems talked about lots of stuff - facets and stations and colonies - that he tried but failed to understand. Eventually he gave up and pulled Steven aside, and asked him to tell him about Crying Breakfast Friends. He didn’t care that much, but Steven did, and he figured the poor kid needed a distraction or two as much as he needed one himself.

….

That had been a while ago, maybe a few hours? Lars wasn’t sure. The off colors were on the move again, and Lars was grateful for the breather. Maybe his body didn't need rest now as much as it did before, but his mind still did. He had a lot to process, and thankfully, the off colors gave him his space.

"What I don't get," Lars said, finally breaking the silence. "Is what the heck did the Diamonds think that Rose Quartz had been doing for thousands of years? Did they just...give up? Like I know you thought the Earth was destroyed but, did they think that? Or did they know it hadn't been? I don't think it's that easy to overlook a planet still being there."

"I think they thought - Rose and the others were corrupted." said Rutile.

"Corrupted?"

The off colors shuddered. Clearly it was something bad. He decided not to push the issue.

"The Earth was an example," said Fluorite, "If you go against the Diamonds, you will be punished."

Well, that was a terrifying thought.

"But, what did the Crystal Gems do that was so bad? Say 'you shouldn't colonize here, there are humans' and..and -" he cut off when he saw the grim looks on their faces. Suddenly it all clicked for him. "She killed a Diamond." they all nodded. And Steven had walked straight to the Diamonds, claiming he was Rose Quartz. That… _idiot_. Even Lars hadn’t managed to ever do anything that self-destructive.

Lars decided he liked silence better.

…

Quite some time passed before Steven came back again. Lars had assumed it was night time on Earth - or Beach City, at least. Hopefully it wasn’t night on the whole planet at once; though Lars would have no way to know that, either. How could such a thing even happen? Maybe the gems put a dome around the Earth to block out the sun. Wait...what? Maybe Lars _was_ getting tired, after all. He was talking nonsense to himself!

When Steven did come back, Lars was more ready for it. He had been running his fingers along the kindergarten wall, idly feeling the stone textures and shapes made by long-gone gems, so he was able to brace himself against the wall as Steven climbed onto his neck. He gently picked the kid up and set  him on the ground. "Anyone else?"

"Just one more," said Steven. Lars flopped dramatically down onto the ground, waiting to see Garnet or Amethyst or Pearl. Instead, a little green gem crawled out of his hair.

"Oh my stars, is this the Delta-Omega kindergarten?" Peridot bubbled. "I think it is! This - this is a historic site, made long before the ones on Earth...when this was made they still used Stalactite drills - " she looked away from the wall, seeing that the off colors were staring at her. "Um, sorry. it's just exciting to see a kindergarten this old."

"You're a - Peridot?" asked Rutile, astounded.

"Um, yeah. That's me. A traitorous Peridot." Peridot laughed uncomfortably.

"But you’re so...small." said Rhodonite.

"Yeah I...lost my limb enhancers a while back."

"That's okay," Fluorite encouraged, "You're fine the way you are."

Peridot smiled. "Wow. Thanks."

Padparadscha caught up with them. “Oh, my. Another Earth gem. Do you live with Steven too?”

Peridot shook her head. “No, I live in a barn, with Lapis Lazuli.”

“Why didn’t she come?” asked Rhodonite.

“She didn’t think she could handle…coming back to homeworld. She’s been through a lot. But I wanted to meet you guys, so she said I should go with Steven. And I did. So uh, here I am!”

“Well I hope to meet her when we get to Earth.” said Fluorite. Peridot looked up at her.

“Woah, I think you’re bigger than Yellow Diamond!”

Fluorite chuckled. “Perhaps.”

“I wonder if there’s a limit to how many gems can fuse.” Peridot said.

“If there is, I haven’t reached it yet.”

Peridot shook her head in amazement. “Fusion is a fascinating subject. The mechanics of inter-gem fusion are - ”

“Oh, I’d love to meet Lapis!” interrupted Padparadscha.

Peridot looked at her in confusion. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s okay.” replied Lars. “She just has trouble keeping up with fast conversations.”

“Okay?” said Peridot, still looking concerned. Lars could tell the little gem liked to analyze and understand things, which was an admirable enough trait. But he also knew from experiencing that analyzing people themselves wasn’t always helpful or wanted. So for the sake of Pads, he changed the subject to something else he thought the green gem would like.

“You know, my birthstone is Peridot.”

“Your birthstone?” asked Peridot. Lars was growing accustomed to questions like these, but hadn’t expected one from her. Shouldn’t she know about birthstones? How long had she been living on Earth?

“Yeah like…every month on Earth is assigned a different gemstone. I was born in August, so mine is Peridot. Garnet is January, Amethyst is February, and Pearl is June.”

“Ruby and Sapphire are July and September.” added Steven. “My birthstone’s Peridot too, you know.”

“Oh! Oh! Does Lapis have a month?” asked Peridot, excited.

Lars scrunched his nose. “I’m not sure. I don’t know all of them. I don’t think so.”

Peridot sighed. “That’s sad. I wanted to tell her she had a month. Oh well.”

“Thanks Lars.” whispered Padparadscha.

“You’re welcome, Pads.” He said back.

Peridot watched this exchange with interest, and perked up slightly. “Lars, you picked a very good birthstone.” Lars laughed. Peridot glanced at Steven. “And I’m sorry for causing you to be here.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? If it’s anyone’s fault it’s that Aquamarine or the Diamonds! Not yours!”

Peridot winced. “I’m the one who told Yellow Diamond about you. Steven told me, and I told Yellow Diamond. I mean, I didn’t mean – at the time I didn’t know – I tried to tell Yellow Diamond that – the cluster – the Earth – humans – but she wouldn’t listen to me!” Peridot finished, frustrated.

Lars shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. What’s past is past.”

“No, you don’t understand!” Peridot looked up at the off colors. “I’m a fraud. I’m not – I’m not like you. I’m one of them. I’ve always been the problem for gems like you.”

Rhodonite knelt down next to Peridot, getting on her level. “Hey, I worked for a _Morganite_. You don’t think I’ve done a few things I regret?”

Tears started to fall down Peridot’s cheeks. “You shouldn’t trust me. Because even after everything Homeworld has done to my friends and the Earth, I’m still glad to be back, because I _missed_ it.”

Lars reached for the little gem’s hand. “That’s good. We have something in common.”

"What's that?"

"I miss my home planet, too."

“I’m sorry,” Peridot whispered through her tears.

“Hey. You were just doing your job, right?”

“Yes, but –“

Lars cut her off. “No buts. What would have happened to you if you hadn’t done your job? ”

Peridot opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“So don’t go telling me this is your fault. You were just a piece of the puzzle, but you saw that what was happening was wrong, and you got yourself _out_. That’s an amazing feat. So don’t sell yourself short.”

Peridot wiped her eyes. “If only I’d seen it sooner, maybe -”

“No, don’t think like that. You can’t change the past. But your act of defiance could have an enormous effect on the future.”

Peridot lifted her chin and made herself taller. “Lars?”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad I’m your birthstone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lars and Steven are definitely both...Leos.  
> Steven's canon birthday is in August, but I couldn't find a canon birthday for Lars so I made it August because I wanted it to be. So there. It's my fanfic I can do what I want.  
> I'm actually on a road trip right now, so might go MIA for several days as it will be way more difficult for me to edit and post while in a car. But I'll be back to posting soon, I promise.  
> Really, thank you all for all these wonderful comments! they mean the world to me! 
> 
> Anyway, I don't want to spoil it by describing it too much, but you should be reading "Refuge." Why are you even reading my fic again? Honestly, Refuge is so much better. 
> 
> [**Refuge**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11192610) (27487 words) by [**Donteatacowman**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Donteatacowman)


	4. A Jury of Her Peers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars sees a familiar face. But can she be trusted?

They had gone over a day without running into any robonoids, it was bound to happen eventually. Luckily, they heard them before they saw them, and the off colors were able to find hiding places where they could wait and hope the robonoids wouldn’t enter their cavern. Lars stood at the ready to jump in front of his friends or smash some robots if need be. That was, until he heard a scream, and ran off in that direction.

“Lars!” called Rhodonite.

“STAY HERE. Someone’s in trouble. I’ll be right back.” He told his companions.

As he neared the mystery gem, he could hear her attempting to reason with the robonoids.

“Oh you blasted MachiNEEES -” Lars heard the sound of a robonoid shot hitting what he hoped was just rock. He increased his speed. “Don’t you know that legally, any gem sentenced to shattering should be entitled to a trial by her Diam-AAAARGH!” Lars rounded the corner and saw - was that who he thought it was?

Blue Zircon dashed into a hole in the Kindergarten wall to avoid another blast – unfortunately, cornering herself. Lars ran as fast as he could, and jumped in front of her in the nick of time.

“Hey, Blue. What’s cracking? Hopefully not you.” He regretted it almost as soon as he said it. Smooth.

“You’re – You’re that human that was with Rose Quartz!” Blue Zircon stammered. “What are you doing? they’ll kill you!” But even as she said it, she watched in amazement as the robonoids scanned Lars, found nothing, and moved on – thankfully, in the direction away from the off colors.

“How did you _do_ that?”

Lars turned to the blue gem and patted his hair. “Pink zombie magic, but no gem. You know that robots don’t respond to legal jargon, right?”

Blue Zircon crossed her arms and huffed. “Well they should.”

“What are you doing down here, anyway?”

“Hmm, let’s see. I basically accused two of the matriarchs of my planet of murdering one of their own, and one of them took it upon herself to personally squash me. I’m not typically one for conspiracy theories, but I go where the evidence leads me.”

“So your first thought on discovering a massive government conspiracy is to run _away_ from civilization?”

“Well, I can’t let anyone know about the conspiracy if I’m dead.” She squinted at him. “I’m pretty sure the last time I saw you, you weren’t pink.”

“Heh. Yeah that’s…courtesy of magic Rose Quartz healing powers.”

“Where is Rose Quartz? Why isn’t she with you? Did she -” she gasped. “Did they shatter her?”

“No, Rose Quartz is fine. Or actually, the person you met isn’t Rose Quartz. That was Steven, Rose Quartz’s half-human son. Rose Quartz died when he was born.”

“ _What?_ ” and then, calmer: “That’s a thing?”

“Er – yeah. It’s kind of a long story. And I don’t know all of it, but - I figure you have time?”

“Yeah. I guess I do.”

“Come on, I have some friends I want you to meet.”

Blue Zircon followed him obligingly. “Thanks for saving my life, by the way.”

“No problem. Believe me, dying sucks.”

....

Lars strolled back to the off colors feeling mighty proud of himself. “Good news, the coast is clear! The robonoids left in the other direction and I've -”

“Oh no! We're dead. We're all dead.” That was Rhodonite.

Lars waved his hands in contradiction. “What, no that's not what I-”

“I think she's talking about me.” Blue Zircon said.

“Oh her? She's not a threat, she's just the gem I saved. Steven and I met her before we found you all, she's cool.”

“B-but she's a Zircon! She's part of law enforcement.” Rhodonite said. “She'll turn us in!” Rhodonite looked around for backup, but the other off colors seemed more concerned at Rhodonite’s sudden panic than at their newest guest.

“I'm...not going to report you to anyone.” assured Zircon.

“But isn't that your job?”

“Well your job was kissing butt to law enforcement, too.” Lars pointed out. “But I don't see you doing that anymore. You more than anyone should understand why someone would want to leave that life.”

“I guess so…” Rhodonite relaxed slightly.

“Well, any friend of Lars is friend of mine.” Fluorite said as she snaked around the stone wall she had been hiding behind.

Zircon yelped. “What kind of gem even _are_ you?”

Fluorite preened. “lots of kinds.”

“Oh right. Introductions!” said Lars. “Fluorite, Rhodonite, Rutile, Pads, this is Blue.”

“Actually, you're the only one who calls me that.” Blue Zircon said.

"Well, whatever you want us to call you..." one Rutile said.

"...you're welcome with us." finished the other.

“Uh, Zircon is fine. And...thanks.”

....

_“M - my Diamond, you’re not going to shatter me?”_

_“You may still be shattered despite me. You have many challenges ahead of you, my Zircon. You will be a fugitive on your own planet, and I cannot help you further. But yes, I am letting you go.”_

_“Might I ask why, my Diamond?”_

_“Because I want to know the truth. Find it.”_

....

“Ugh, Steven. No matter how many times you climb out of my head, I’m never going to get used to it.”

“Sorry, Lars...Zircon! You’re okay!” Steven was so surprised at noticing the off colors’ newest member that he slipped, but luckily Lars caught him.

“Careful there, buddy.” Lars said. “You okay?”

Steven nodded. “Yeah just, confused and a bit surprised? How did…?” He tilted his head questioningly at Blue Zircon.

“How did I get here? Well, after your trial, I reformed in a cell much like the one you were in, waiting for my own trial. Only, they really shouldn’t put Zircon’s in those cells, we know them too well. Suffice to say, I escaped easily.” It was a bold faced lie, but one Zircon managed to get away with. “I knew the Kindergartens were a good place to hide, so I came down here.” This much was true. “Eventually I ran into Lars, and -”

“Technically, I ran in front of you.” Lars said. The joke didn’t seem to land as well as he’d hoped.

“Riiiight. The point is, I met Lars and he explained to me what happened to _you_ after the trial. Not to mention, about your hybrid nature, which I’m honestly still a little confused about.”

Steven grinned slyly. “You and just about everyone else!”

After a few beats, his face fell. “I’m sorry about lying to you about that...”

Oh, dear. This kid was apologizing for lying to _her?_

“You don’t need to apologize. I mean...you were putting your own gem in danger! Really Steven, what in the name of Blue Diamond were you thinking? Turning yourself into the Diamonds of all things!”

Steven groaned. “Not you _too_. I’ve gotten plenty of lectures already.”

“And that you should have. It was a cloddy thing to do.”

Steven snickered.

“Why are you laughing? I’m serious.”

“Oh nothing, it’s just…you remind me of my friend Peridot. You should meet her.”

Blue Zircon softened. “Maybe I will.” She fiddled with her monocle. “Lars tells me your brain isn’t fully developed yet -”

“Lars!”

“Steven, _my brain_ isn’t even fully developed. Yours definitely isn’t.” Lars considered this. “Wait, am I stuck like this? With a permanently teenage brain? Did you trap me in puberty _forever?_ ”

Blue Zircon cleared her throat.

“Sorry, Blue. You were saying?”

“As I was saying, technically a gem can be tried at any age. But legally speaking, I think your human half should win out on this one.” She crouched down to look him in the eyes. “The fact that you’re still growing means that your decision making capabilities and ability to deal with undue emotional stress are at a diminished capacity compared to that of other gems. This is not due to any wrongdoing on your part; it is due to your nature. But this nature leads me to my conclusion that you should never been put on trial in the first place, and certainly not on death row.”

Steven grimaced. “Nobody gets it. I had to.”

Blue Zircon sighed. “Did you ever consider telling them you weren’t Rose?”

“I -” Steven looked perplexed. “No. but what good have that done? They would have wanted to kill me either way!”

Blue shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. They wanted to kill you because they thought you were Rose Quartz. I don’t think they would have if they’d known you weren’t. You are not responsible for anything your mother did - ” She tilted her head back and forth in thought – “Or didn’t do, as the case may be.”

Rhodonite blinked, closing all her eyes at once. “If Rose didn’t shatter Pink Diamond, who did?”

“The Diamond Authority,” said Blue Zircon grimly.

Rutile rubbed a nose. “I don’t believe it." "That couldn’t be true.” “Could it be?”

“Do you think Yellow Diamond really did that?” Steven asked.

Blue Zircon placed her hand on her chin. “What makes you think it was Yellow Diamond?”

“Blue Diamond always seems so sad. I don’t think she would do something like that.”

“I’m cognitively biased in favor of Blue Diamond, but your assessment may be correct. I will need more evidence to be certain. However, there are still questions. What would Yellow’s motivation have been, for example?”

Lars would have been lying if he had said he fully understood what they were talking about, but he decided to take a stab at it. “Maybe Pink Diamond knew something that Yellow didn’t want getting out, or was in her way for some reason.”

Blue Zircon pursed her lips. “Perhaps.”

“How do you know Pink Diamond was really shattered?” asked Fluorite, towering over their conversation.

Blue Zircon’s hands shook as she looked up at the gem. For a gem who was new to the concept of inter-gem fusion, Lars thought she was taking it well. “I suppose we don’t know that for certain.” she admitted.

Steven looked perturbed. “No, I’ve met gems that said they _saw_ my mom shatter Pink Diamond. And they seemed pretty upset; I don’t think they were lying. The Crystal Gems even believed my mom did it. If she didn’t do it, why would she have let her friends believe that she did?”

“Dude, what _wasn’t_ you mom hiding?” Lars said. From the look on Steven’s face he realized that probably wasn’t the best thing he could have said, and tried to salvage the kid’s feelings. “Maybe...she could have been trying to protect someone.”

The hurt on Steven’s face turned into curiosity. “Who?”

“I guess…whoever really did shatter Pink Diamond.”

“Or she could have been protecting Pink Diamond herself.” suggested Fluorite. Steven seemed to be relieved by this suggestion.

“Someone could have shape-shifted to look like Rose.” said Padparadscha. It was a bit delayed, but a decent theory nonetheless.

Steven looked from Padparadscha to Fluorite, then at Blue Zircon, then at Lars. “I want to believe that my mom didn’t shatter anyone, but I just…don’t know if I can.”

“Then perhaps, we should wait on jumping to conclusions until all the evidence is in.” Blue Zircon said.

“Good idea, Blue.” said Lars.

Blue Zircon shook her head. “Why must you insist on calling me blue? That’s not my name.”

“Well you’re blue, aren’t you?”

“I suppose you’re right, Pink.”

“I guess I deserved that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woot! Four chapters in, and I'm finally introducing Blue Zircon. And the plot thickens...what's going to happen?? dun dun dunnn.
> 
> I'm not totally happy with the editing in this chapter, particularly in Steven's visit (believe it or not I think I actually spent less time editing this chapter than the others), but I wanted to go ahead and get this chapter out there since it's been awhile since the last update. Now I'm probably going back to a much faster schedule, since I'm back home and am also going to be viewing this fic as my main camp nano project. so...onwards and upwards!
> 
> I'm honestly really fascinated by my version of Blue Zircon, aka queen of highly-uncomfortable-with-everything-that-is-happening-to-her, but I couldn't possibly introduce her with out giving a shout out to the amazing "De Facto" which probably is what gave me the idea to include Blue Zircon in the first place. Obviously my Blue Zircon is in a very different position than the one in De Facto, but I think they might get along. Or kill each other. One of the two. 
> 
> [**De Facto**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11065119) (9937 words) by [**f0rt1ss1m0**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/f0rt1ss1m0)


	5. Finally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly just fluff with a little bit of angst. (though, that probably describes all my chapters...)

Over time, Lars was learning that there were some physiological signs that someone was about to come through his hair door...portal...thingy. They were subtle, but he was pretty sure he could tell that Steven was coming now, so he knelt down in preparation. Sure enough, Steven came out with his usual “It’s not just me!” warning, and Lars waited for whatever gem it was this time to come out.

It wasn’t a gem. Lars heard a gasp, and a gem wouldn’t have needed to take a breath.

“Steven, how can you do this all the time? My lungs are burning.”

Lars didn’t need to see her to know who it was, he knew that voice all too well.

“Steven!” He yelled, though he made sure not to make any sudden movements so Sadie wouldn’t fall.

“What? She wanted to come! I tried to tell her no, but she was really insistent...”

“She bribed you with donuts, didn’t she.”

“Maybe...”

As soon as her feet touched the ground, Sadie scooped Lars up into a big bear hug. “Lars, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Lars hesitated, then returned the hug. He acted annoyed, but the truth was, he was glad to see his best friend.

“It’s a human, isn’t it!” Rhodonite said excitedly.

“Oh is this the girl?” “The one you were telling us about?” Rutile asked.

“No!” Lars lied, but then thought better of it. “…Yes.”

“She’s very lovely…” said Fluorite.

Blue Zircon adjusted her monocle and turned up her nose. “Who is this...yellow girl?”

Sadie didn’t seem nearly as freaked out by the off colors as Lars was by them when he first met them, but Lars suspected Steven had told her about them. Then again, her attention wasn’t on them. Lars broke their embrace. “Sadie, I’m glad to see you too, but you shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t you start, Lars.” Sadie said.

“Seriously?” Steven threw his arms up to the air. “After all this you’re still embarrassed?”

Lars gritted his teeth. “It’s not…that.” He glanced at the off colors. He wanted to talk to Sadie, but he wasn’t sure, even after all they’d been through, if he wanted to talk to her in front of them. “It’s just…it’s dangerous.”

Sadie rolled her eyes. “Sure, now you care for my safety.”

Lars grimaced. “Sadie I’m sorry about that, I shouldn’t have run…”

“Lars, I’m teasing.”

“Still. I’m sorry.” Lars couldn’t forgive himself that easily. He shook his head. “Sadie, I’m serious. I don’t want you putting yourself in danger on my account. I can get why Steven wants to come visit from time to time but you…you have no part in this.”

Sadie slapped Lars on the shoulder. “Lars, you can really be an idiot sometimes. I have no part in this whatsoever? Lars, you _died_.”

Lars nodded grimly. “I know, that’s why you have to leave.”

“Don’t you get all white knight on me now, you know better than that.”

“Technically, he’s more like a pink knight.” said Blue Zircon. Lars stuck his tongue out at her.

“Look, if something dangerous happens, I’ll leave. But I don’t see anything dangerous happening right now.”

This seemed reasonable enough to Lars. “Okay, fine.”

“Besides, I came to give you something.”

Lars raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything Sadie had pulled him into a kiss. That was…wow.

If Lars had looked up, he might or might not have seen that Blue Zircon had her arms crossed, but he would definitely have seen that Steven was smiling ear to ear and that two of Rhodonite’s hands were flailing in excitement. “I don’t know what that was, but that was adorable!” she said.

As it happened, Lars didn’t look up and instead remained lingering, resting his forehead on Sadie’s.

“Ugh. Sades…I’ve got some bad news. I don’t think a long distance relationship is going to work out...”

Sadie slapped him again, though this time it was on his side instead of his arm, as his arms were wrapped around her neck. “Idiot,” she muttered, nuzzling her head into his chest.

“ _Finally!_ ” Steven exclaimed.

“Oh oh, are you going to make kids now?” Rhodonite asked.

This comment shocked Lars enough to break the embrace again.

“I, er – no, that’s not – that’s not how that works, exactly – um – ” Lars was blushing a bright shade of red. Sadie giggled.

“What? Don’t laugh at me.” Lars whined, defensively bringing his hand up to his hair.

“No it’s not that…I was just thinking about how much you _detest_ pink.”

Lars smiled, looking down at his arms. “Actually, I think it kind of suits me, don’t you think?”

....

Sadie and Steven walked with them for awhile, and Lars was absolutely giddy. He knew that unlike the off colors (and himself, it appeared), they would eventually get tired of walking and have to leave. But for now, Lars was genuinely happy for once, and he was going to savor it. Walking hand in hand with Sadie, surrounded by his friends - as eclectic of a group of friends they were - felt nice. That's the only way he could describe it.

As they walked, the off colors were questioning Sadie, vetting her almost like overprotective parents, making sure she was good enough for their pink son.

“How long have you two - known each other?” Rutile asked.

“A few years,” Sadie answered.

“Such a short time…” Fluorite said.

Lars still wasn’t convinced the off colors understood how long an Earth year was, but in any case the way humans and gems experienced time had to be almost incomparable. “Yes, but also no,” he replied.

“Why her?” Blue questioned. Sadie felt like she was being examined.

“I think that question should be the other way around...” said Lars. “She’s always been there for me, even when I didn’t deserve it.”

Sadie bumped her head into Lars’ shoulder playfully. “You deserve more than you think.”

"How did you two meet?" asked Rhodonite. She was almost as bad as Steven.

"We work together at the Big Donut," said Sadie.

"I think that should be past tense. We worked together. Who knows if that's still going to be the case anymore." pointed out Lars.

"Oh, um," Sadie hesitated. She hadn't totally considered what would happen when Lars got back. She had just assumed everything would go back to normal, but she realized that was probably silly of her to assume. "Well, I'm sure you could get your job back when you get back to Earth - if you want it. You do want it, don't you?"

Lars shrugged. He didn't even know when - or if - he was getting back to Earth.

"Is that your purpose? Were you both made to work at the Big Donut?" Rhodonite asked.

Steven shook his head. "It doesn't work that way on Earth. Humans aren't _made_ to do anything."

“How fascinating,” said Fluorite.

“Does Earth not have lawyers then?” asked Blue Zircon.

“No, it does,” Steven said. “Actually, that trial felt pretty familiar. I mean, I’ve never been to court on Earth. But I’ve seen it on TV?”

“Interesting. I wonder how much gem courts influenced Earth’s.”

“It’s pretty similar. Just, the lawyers on Earth chose to be lawyers.”

Lars looked at the off colors, uncertain. The truth was, he related greatly to being frustrated with working at a job you didn't really want. "Steven's technically right but - lawyers on Earth aren’t necessarily lawyers because they want to do it, but more likely because it gives them status and power. I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to be a lawyer.” He glanced at Blue Zircon. “Er, no offense.”

“None taken. Given my current situation, I don’t blame you. I’m not so keen on being a lawyer myself, at the moment. it's not like I had a choice in the matter.”

Rhodonite interrupted him before he got further on his rant. “Wait so, if you can choose what you want to be, does that mean humans know how to do _every_ job?”

“Oh god no,” Lars answered, “Earth babies are like, really dumb. They can’t do anything.”

“That’s not totally true.” Sadie said, “Babies can do some stuff.”

“Like hold their breath underwater.” Steven added.

Lars raised an eyebrow.

“What? They can. Babies do some stuff by instinct.”

“They’re pretty good at getting their parents attention when they need help,” said Sadie.

“Having to help a new human through everything seems impractical.” said one of the Rutiles. It was rare for one to talk without the other chiming in, but it did happen.

Lars laughed. “Yeah, humans are pretty impractical.” This earned him another affectionate push from Sadie, but he ignored it. “We like, have to spend a quarter of our lives in school.”

“School?” Rhodonite asked, and then - “I’m asking too many questions, aren’t I?”

Lars shook his head. “No, I actually kind of like explaining stuff about Earth. It calms me down in a weird way.” Lars thought for a moment. “A school is like, a place where earth kids go to learn things?” He laughed again. “As a matter of fact, we have the word kindergarten too, but it means something entirely different. It’s what we call school for _really_ young kids.”  
Lars looked up at the off colors, and saw they all had puzzled looks on their faces. “Okay, what about what I said was confusing?”

Blue Zircon pointed a finger in the air. “Look at it this way. Humans develop intellectually mostly after birth, not before it. Gems are the other way around. Human minds are designed to soak up information. Gem minds are designed to disregard irrelevant stimulus. Talk to me about case law on your planet, and I’ll probably remember it. But no matter how many times you try to explain to me what a donut is, I’m predisposed to simply...not care about that information and forget it. Some types of gems can learn easier than others, but it’s difficult for all of us.”

Lars spluttered. A society without _learning?_ “But, but – you’ve all been learning about Earth the whole time I’ve been here! And before that, you were learning about these caverns.”

“You could say we learned to learn.” Fluorite explained. “We adapted once our circumstances changed. But our circumstances were not supposed to change.”

“But learning about the Earth is fun.” Rhodonite added, perhaps afraid that Lars would stop explaining things to them. Lars just stared at the off colors, dumbfounded.

“Oh, a society that’s based around learning. How fascinating.” Padparadscha said. Lars looked down at her, and was broken from the tension he had been feeling. Somehow, even in a society where learning wasn’t emphasized, his friends were still excited to do it. Maybe if you weren’t forced to do it all your life, the joy wasn’t sucked out of it. He imagined if he had been born knowing all the things he knew now, he wouldn’t put so much of an emphasis on learning, either. In a way, he kind of wished he didn’t have to worry about learning so much. Maybe Homeworld was better on this front…but just this one front.

“But hey, I’m half gem, and I still have to learn things.” Steven was saying. “But I never have gone to school…” This broke Lars out of his own head (figuratively).

“Really? That explains a lot.”

“Lars...” Sadie chastised.

Lars shrugged. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” His relationship with school was...complicated.

Rhodonite tried to sum up what he was saying. “So you don’t really chose your job directly, you choose what you want to learn which determines what job you have.”

Lars scrunched his nose “Sort of? I mean, people say you can have whatever job you want - that's not really true? Like, I'm young, so there are only certain jobs I can really work at. And if you're older but uneducated then you run into the same problem. And you can’t just choose _not_ to work. Like, It's still expected of us to work once we reach a certain age. Maybe we don't _have_ to the same way gems do but, if you don't work it could cause all sorts of problems for you.”

Sadie was rolling her eyes. She'd heard Lars rant against capitalism plenty of times before. But Steven hadn't yet. "Lars, how could you say that? Don't you like working at the Big Donut?"

"Sure, kind of. But I don't want to be working there forever. My parents want me to go to college - though missing the end of my senior year doesn't exactly help on that front." his parents...

“Hey Sadie, did you bring your phone with you?”

“I don’t think you’re going to get any reception out here, Lars.”

“No I just wanted…can I use your camera?”

“Oh, okay,” Sadie said, pulling it out of her pocket. “It doesn’t have a lot of battery left.”

“I only need a little.” Lars said, turning the camera to face him and pressing record. “Uh…hi mom. Hi dad. It’s Lars. I’m…pink? But that’s not important. What’s important is I’m okay. It’s alright. Everything is fine. I’m not alone. I’ve made some good friends here, and they know what they’re doing. They’re going to help me get home. So…I’ll see you soon, okay? If you have questions, you can probably ask Sadie or Steven. I love you. Bye.” He stopped the recording, and handed the phone to Sadie.

“Can you make sure my parents get that?”

“Sure thing but…you know that you being so nice - hell, you making _friends_ \-  is going to freak them out more, right?”

Lars laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Okay but, do we really know what we’re doing?” asked Rhodonite.

"I think we do." said Lars. 

Sadie was shaking her head. “Honestly, who are you and what have you done with Lars?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually probably the second or third chapter of this fic that I wrote, and I spent a lot of time debating where it should go. I had to re-write it to include Blue Zircon who wasn't originally in it, but I think the scene is better for it. Part of me is worried it's "interrupting" the main plot but this fic is really episodic as it is anyway so it probably doesn't matter and I over thought this way too much.  
> Probably nobody cares about my rationale on the timeline but I shall explain it anyway: I think Wanted happens in spring semester of Lars' senior year. I'm going to say that Lars was 16 at the start of the series and is 18 now, though he could have also been 15 at the start of the series if we assume labor laws are different/the big donut fudges labor laws. If that's the case there's also potential to say that Lars is currently a junior, assuming the way ages line up with school years is similar to ours. Meanwhile I'm going to say that Sadie is 18 at the start of the series and 20 now, though she could probably be several years older than that. She's old enough that her mom refers to her as an adult, but young enough that when she started working at the big donut two years before the series started, it was a "summer job."
> 
> Did I bore everyone away yet?  
> My fic recommend for Sadie content is "Little Talks." I know I've read multiple fics like this, but I can't seem to re-find the others I've read. But this one hurt my heart.  
> [ **Little Talks**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11228358) (876 words) by [**SnowyFrostShadow**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowyFrostShadow)


	6. Keystone Kindergarten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars learns about love and fusion.

After Sadie left, Lars felt a terrible ache in his chest. He knew what it was, he’d been feeling it ever since Steven first left, but it was so much worse now. It was homesickness. It was regret. It was...not useful. He forced himself to swallow it. Self-pity wasn’t going to get him home. He had to work for it. The Crystal Gems, the off colors...they had a plan, all he had to do was follow it. Maybe he was a little hazy on what that plan was...but he believed in them. He had to. What else could he do?

But it wasn’t all bad. As troubling (and well, bad sci-fi movie-esque) as his situation was, Lars felt himself falling into a sense of normalcy. In a way, it was almost like high school. Fluorite was the teacher, the twins were those students who always paid attention that you asked to explain the answer to you, Rhodonite was the hyper one with social anxiety, Pads was the one that wasn't given enough credit but tried harder than any of them, and Blue was the new kid in class that clung tightly to the one friend she had managed to make - that one friend being Lars. The fact that he had the off colors made being away from home more bearable.

But any semblance of routine Lars thought he had fell apart when Fluorite did.

It had happened without warning; one minute, Lars was telling Rutile a story about Jenny and Kiki, and then suddenly there was a white light so bright that it filled up the entire cavern. Lars had a fleeting moment of wondering if his death was finally catching up with him before he realized that the light was coming from Fluorite. Through the glare he watched her unfusing, and saw a humanoid form drop out of Fluorite’s torso and fall what had to be at least twenty feet to the ground. (Though Lars supposed it wasn't Fluorite's torso anymore. Fluorite-lite?)

“Celestite!” Rhodonite called. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“Yeah, I'm okay,” groaned Celestite. As the light cleared, Lars saw that Celestite was a pale blue color, and was around his height, but was slightly less humanoid than he first thought. She did only have two legs, but she had four arms like Rhodonite, and three eyes like Garnet. Her hair was a silvery-white, flowing gracefully past her shoulders, and she had two gems: a triangular one on her chest and the other more rounded on her forehead. Despite her alien appearance, Lars thought she would be considered gorgeous even by human standards.

He couldn't say the same for the four-gem fusion that had been left behind. Lars could now see clearly that she wasn't just Fluorite-lite; she didn't look _anything_ like Fluorite. For one thing, she had the wrong coloration - a deep shade of green with pink-copper and black waves all along her body. Sure, she still had a few too many legs to be humanoid, but if anything she looked more like a giant space scorpion than a giant space caterpillar. Lars might have ranked her as the most terrifying thing he'd seen on this planet if it weren't for like, the evil dictator ladies and killer robots. But when he looked up to her face he saw Fluorite's kind eyes (or four of them, at least) and knew he had no reason to be afraid. He didn't know what was going on with her hair, though. It was white with copper streaks, as if she has gotten a really bad dye job, and it was clumped together haphazardly in a way that said more “eccentric aunt” rather than “grandmother figure.”  

“Hey Pink, is this normal? Is a fusion this large just unstable?” Blue Zircon asked in the direction of Lars.

Lars shrugged. “You got me. I've never seen this before.”

“Oh we're normally stable. She's just being difficult,” the larger fusion rolled both pairs of eyes, talking noticeably faster than Fluorite. “It'll pass.”

The math was making Lars' head spin: Between the two fusions they had gained an extra eye, and Fluorite definitely didn't have eight arms. Plus, the aunt-scorpion fusion (or was she more like a spider?) didn't seem any smaller than Fluorite was. Whatever the rules of fusion were, they didn't include conservation of mass, eyes, or limbs. And wasn't Fluorite partly purple? There wasn't any purple on _either_ of them.

“ _I’m_ being difficult? I'm being difficult! I'm not the one who…Argh!” Celestite crossed one pair of arms while placing her other hands firmly on her hips, one foot tapping impatiently. “Fine. Be that way.”

“Oh dear.”Padparadscha tsked. “Fluorite is going to unfuse. We're in for a horrible fight.” Something told Lars that that last part wasn't future vision talking, but experience.

“Excuse me, but what are you fighting about?” asked Blue Zircon.

“Well, that's not any of your business, is it?” said Celestite.

“She was just trying to help.” Scolded her counterpart.

Lars approached the other fusion. “Hi, um…”

She bowed. “Atacamite, at your service.”

“Atacamite,” Lars repeated, “ _is_ there something we can do to help?”

Atacamite waved both of her right hands in dismissal. “Oh, she's just mad at me because I don't want to tell her...well. The reasons don't matter. She's mad at me, is the point. She'll get over it.”

“Right,” grumbled Celestite. She had found a low lying gem hole and was leaning against it's inside wall, her face partially in shadow. “Because I've always got to be the bigger gem.” Lars stifled a laugh at the irony of that particular statement.

“Atacamite, is it?” Blue Zircon began. The fusion bobbed her head. “Maybe I _can_ help. I am somewhat of a conflict resolution expert. Of course, I specialize in _legal_ mediation, but this can't be that different…”

“Perhaps mediation would be warranted, provided that Celestite is willing, of course.”

Celestite huffed. “So you'll trust her, but not me?”

“I don't trust her. But I respect her. And I trust Lars.”

Zircon bristled. “Wait, why don't you two trust me? I thought you - Fluorite at least - liked me.”

“I do like you.” Atacamite said. “It's not that I think you're untrustworthy, just that I don't trust your judgement.”

“Why. What did I do?”

“It's not anything you did. It's what you could do. You're digging in places you don't belong. Opposing the Diamonds head on is dangerous business. Us off colors struggle to survive as it is. We just want to live in peace; that's why we're going to Earth. We don't need to challenge the status quo.”

“Challenging the status quo is exactly what we need to do!” shouted Celestite. “You think that just because things have always been one way, that that's how they're always going to be. But we don't have to just lay down and accept it! We shouldn't! All you ever want to do is run away from your problems! But you can't, not forever! Because if you keep running, eventually you're going to leave me behind!” Celestite stopped yelling, as she had apparently run out of most of her steam. But she wasn't quite done. Her voice became quiet and demure. “I don't even know what you're running from, because even after _everything_ you don't trust me enough to tell me.”

Lars had the distinct impression that, had he looked up “soul-crushing” in whatever the gem version of a dictionary was, he would have seen a picture of Atacamite's face in that moment.

“Of course I trust you.” She whispered. “I've always trusted you. You're a part of me. And I don't want to lose you. But the memories... they're just too painful.” She turned to address Blue Zircon. “You didn't do anything wrong. It's just that your talk of Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond...has brought up memories that I haven't thought about in a long time, and would rather not think about.”

“Does that mean...the rebellion...you were…” Blue Zircon started, but trailed off.

“Some of us are old enough to remember the war, yes. It's funny, when you're a fusion for so long...it starts to all blend together. You forget who's memories are who's. But the things I've seen...I felt like I needed to protect Celestite from them, somehow.”

“But we're the same.” Celestite said. “Your pain is supposed to be my pain. Can't you see that?”

“I know.” Atacamite said. “And I know it's not fair to you. But I...don't know what to do.”

“I guess you're just too human.” Lars said. This got him stares from basically everyone.

“Er - well - what I mean is, not knowing what to do when it comes to love is a pretty human characteristic. Our entire culture basically revolves around it. Because you know what, relationships are _hard_. I struggle to consistently keep one person liking me, I can't imagine _five other people_ liking me. But you as Fluorite have managed to do that not only longer than I've been alive, but longer than my entire goddamn country has even existed! That’s an _amazing_ feat. You probably know better than anyone how to make a relationship work. Relationships are all about good communication, right?”

As Lars gave his speech, Atacamite had elected to fold her legs under herself and was now lying down sort of like a centaur. She touched Celestite’s cheek gently with an over-sized hand. “I don’t want you to have the burden of knowing what I know.”

“We’re talking about your other half here,” Lars said, “or your other third, but you know what I mean.”

Celestite nodded. “Lars is right.” She took a step onto Atacamite’s hand, and was lifted upwards. She placed her hand on Atacamite’s chest. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m helping you with.”

“I’m just...so scared.”

“It’s okay,” Celestite said, “I’m here.”

And just like that, the light was back. And a moment later, so was Fluorite.

"Thank you, Lars." she said, back to her normal speed of speech. Honestly, if the old Lars had been told he was destined to give relationship advice to a giant space bug, he wouldn't have believed it. 

....

Visuals for Atacamite and Celestite:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever just read something you wrote and go, "I wrote that. what the heck." that's this chapter. This chapter almost didn't happen, but I'm really glad it did. 
> 
> Obviously, this chapter title is a reference to keystone motel, but it also has a bit of a double meaning because a keystone is the first stone put down in a foundation, and you could also view the kindergartens on Homeworld as the "keystones" of their empire in that sense. I may or may not have a character say something to this effect. 
> 
> Shout out to moony for making Celestite and Atacamite's gemsonas for me. Honestly, moony is just my secret collaborator on everything. 
> 
> I honestly have no idea if there are other fics similar to this chapter, because I haven't looked for them. Maybe if you guys know of any Fluorite unfusing fics, you could recommend them to me?  
> But even though it has nothing to do with this chapter, I'll recommend "Boy with the Pink Hair" because it makes me suffer.  
> [ **The Boy With Pink Hair**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11117028) (9742 words) by [**Trixxster103**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Trixxster103)  
>  addendum: Trixxster is secretly the best I'm serious


	7. Blue and Pink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue Zircon's ulterior motivations cause tension.

_Rose Quartz might trust you yet. Yellow is searching for her, but will fail. But an ally – someone who risked her own gem for hers – might succeed. The path before you is dangerous, but righteous. Even if you fail, the search for truth is never in vain. Above all, my Zircon, trust your instincts._

These words were ringing in Zircon’s ears as she walked. She had been sent by her Diamond to find Rose Quartz, and she had found her. Sort of. Was it treasonous that she did not now go running to her Diamond with what she knew? _Rose Quartz might trust you yet._ That was the thing - Steven did trust her. Lars trusted her. Hell, even the _off colors_ trusted her. And she didn’t want to break that trust. But she didn’t want to defy her Diamond, either. What did Blue Diamond even _want_ from her? Her instructions were beyond vague – it was like vague had been shattered and she’d only been given a shard of it. What was she supposed to do? She found herself, not for the first time, wishing she could just go back to before she had been assigned to defend Rose Quartz. _Why did it have to be her?_ Had it been any other Zircon in her place, _they wouldn’t have been stupid enough to accuse the Diamonds of assassination._ Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut? Oh, she really _was_ the unluckiest Zircon in all the galaxy. 

A small part of her wondered if Rose Quartz really had done it. But the more Zircon learned about Rose, the more confused she became. None of Rose’s motives made any sense. A gem who believed in her cause enough to essentially sacrifice her own existence on principle didn’t sound at all like the kind of war criminal that everyone on Homeworld had been led to believe she was. She wasn’t a general, she was a caregiver. A healer. A mother. She didn’t take life, she protected it - _created_ it. A gem like that would put her own gem on the line a million times over before anyone else’s, wouldn’t she? Was this the nature of Rose Quartz soldiers, Zircon wondered, or was this Rose different somehow? Somehow, without having ever known her, Zircon had developed a certain admiration for the rebellion’s mythic leader. If there had been a way to deal with Pink Diamond diplomatically, Zircon was certain that Rose would have found it.

_Above all, my Zircon, trust your instincts._ Something about this phrase made Blue Zircon think it held hidden meaning. _Your instincts were right before_ , it seemed to imply. A Diamond couldn’t tell her to defy the Diamond Authority directly, just to _trust her instincts_ . If she broke the law under vague orders from her Diamond, it would be on her head, not her Diamond’s. It was a highly uncomfortable situation to be in. Up until recently, Zircon’s first and only purpose had been to serve the law. She had never even questioned this – she had complete faith in it. But if the law had failed the off colors so thoroughly, failed Rose Quartz, failed _the Diamonds_ – how could she still believe in it? But what was she without it, without her purpose?

She found this question to be much less upsetting than she thought it would be. Her purpose had never been the law, she realized. The law was gem made, and therefore faulty. But truth, justice – those were things bigger than even the Diamonds.

_Trust your instincts._ And her instincts were telling her to stay close to the center of the action. That was the only way she could discover what she wanted – _needed_ – to know.

Technically, she had not been told to “find Rose Quartz and apprehend her immediately.” Her objective was to find the truth.

It just turned out that the truth was a very messy thing indeed.

....

“Alright, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Um…what do you mean?” Great. Lars was on to her.

“Come on, you really think I can’t tell you’ve been acting strange lately?” They were trailing behind the other off colors, slightly out of earshot. Lars had presumably done this on purpose.

Zircon gulped and braced herself.

“First, you were looking a little greener than usual when Sadie was here. Then, I don’t even know _what_ happened when Fluorite unfused…”

Okaaay. That was not what she expected him to say. “I changed hue?”

“No, sorry. There’s a phrase on Earth where we say someone is ‘green with envy.’ At first I thought it was just that you had a problem with Sadie for some reason, but now I’m thinking…does our Zircon maybe have a problem with love?”

Oh. Right. There was that, too.

“No, I do not.” She lied. But her quota of lies she was going to get away with was running thin.

Lars held his palms up in front of him. “If you say so.”

“My relationships with other Zircons are strictly professional.” The crack in her voice gave her away.

“So another Zircon, eh?”

Zircon pressed her lips into a small line. Maybe Lars wasn’t on to her deception after all, but this was almost as bad. “The work relationships that Zircons have with one another are by nature adversarial. That is not exactly conducive for developing the kinds of…intimate relationships some other gems have. Besides, the whole ‘treasonous fugitive’ thing complicates matters considerably.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

To her surprise, Lars looked amused by this. “It’s funny, really.”

Zircon didn’t think it was very funny. “What?”

“How we’re from two totally different planets, and yet we’re so similar.”

“Your relationships are also adversarial?”

Lars laughed. “Adversarial doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’ve done a lot of things I regret, to be honest. I kind of have a habit of pushing people away when I need them the most.”

For a brief moment, Blue Zircon wondered if Lars had some sort of angle. From her point of view, what Lars was saying didn’t match up with what she’d observed of his behavior thus far. But then, she didn’t really know him that well, did she?

“But not with Sadie?” she asked.

“Oh, especially with Sadie. But I’m working on it.”

For some reason, Zircon couldn’t shake the distinct feeling of wanting to retreat back into her gem and hide forever. "I think you were right. When I saw you with Sadie, I was jealous. Not jealous of just her, jealous of both of you. Of the whole, affectionate relationship...thing. But I was rude. If she's important to you, I should have given her a chance. I'm sorry."

Lars didn’t say anything for far longer than Zircon felt comfortable with.

"Blue, you're alright."

_No, I'm not._

“Er – thanks?”

"I can stop calling you Blue, if it makes you uncomfortable."

"No, it's fine. It's kind of cute, really. As long as I'm still allowed to call you Pink."

"Always."

....

_“Pink, you don’t have to go…”_

_“I appreciate your help, Blue, but this is my colony, not yours.”_

_“But with such a small convoy? Do you really think that’s a good idea?”_

_“More soldiers would just send the wrong message. If we expect Rose Quartz to lay down her arms, we must do the same. We must treat her like an equal.”_

_“But she’s not an equal! You’re a Diamond! She’s just a soldier.”_

_“She does not see it that way. That much is clear. If we are to get anywhere, we must understand why.”_

_“Why? Why does it matter why? She’s disrespecting you! Don’t let her do this to you, Pink! You’re stronger than that.”_

_“Blue, let me handle this. If Rose Quartz is willing to talk, I’m willing to listen.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is on the short end, there was another scene I had planned to be part of this chapter but I'm still working on it and it really deserves it's own chapter, anyway. I've now reached the point where I'm no longer ahead of the game and now I actually have to write chapters before I can post them...who knew? So yeah, I'm not sure what my updating schedule is going to be, but it's going to slow down.  
> Also, I'm thinking about maybe making videos of me reading my fic out loud? Does that sound like something people would be interested in? (this is dependent on getting technology to cooperate with me though, so...)  
> I think I might as well drop the pretense of trying to recommend fics that are related to my chapters, and just recommend fics I like instead. If you're not reading the Connieswap series, then do it. It's about what would happen if Connie was the half-gem instead of Steven. Also, Peridot, Lapis, and Jasper are the Crystal Gems. I haven't read all the episodes yet, but there's always really good art in them and I'm quite invested.


	8. Get Away Driver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot visits again, Blue Zircon devises a plan, and Lars learns he can teleport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you may have noticed that I changed the rating on this fic to teen and up. I did this because of things that happen near the end of this chapter, as well as things that are planned for some future chapters. I'm still going for a mostly positive style of story, but want to explore some emotionally intense themes too. Anytime something I think is potentially triggering comes up, I'll try to put a warning at the top of the chapter. For this chapter, though most of it is still the same silly nonsense I normally do, near the end Lars has some intense feelings regarding murder, and there is a flashback to an experience with bullying and use of a homophobic slur. If you don't want to read that, then you can stop reading around the time Lars and Peridot are talking about the Earth.

As it turned out, Zircon did meet Peridot, who had come for another visit. She wouldn't be staying for long, as she said Lapis and the others needed her. But Lars suspected the draw of ancient Kindergartens was too enticing for the little nerd to refuse. As it was, the gem was regaling him with facts about Kindergartens that he was certainly going to forget. The ones they were in currently were apparently some of the first, the ‘foundation’ of the empire as Peridot had said. That phrasing was particularly unsettling, Lars thought.

He had to admit that the fact that they were traveling through what basically amounted to an old gem womb was...more than a bit creepy. But it was also incredibly useful that their environment had built in hiding places. If they all got into nearby exit holes, Lars could effectively shield everyone but Fluorite, which was vastly more efficient than running around in circles trying to protect everyone. Lars might have even said fighting robots was fun if it wasn't so pants-wetting terrifying.

(He might have been able to shield Fluorite too, if she unfused, but he didn’t think it wise to bring that possibility up given recent events.)

Blue Zircon was rather quiet. She acted more comfortable talking to Peridot than the others, but even _her_ excited ramblings seemed to annoy Zircon after a while. Lars couldn't blame Blue – the off colors tried their best to make her feel welcome, but there was only so much that could be done. She was in shock. She had lost everything in one fell swoop all due to sheer dumb luck. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it would take time for her to adjust to her new surroundings.

Lars thought it was an interesting combination - gems who had never belonged alongside gems who had always belonged - until they didn't. Blue was like Peridot in that respect. They had both challenged the status quo when forced to make a decision, but they had also both benefited from it.

And Steven was right to say Blue reminded him of Peridot for more than just choice of swear words - their personalities did seem to complement each other. Which made it all the more worrisome to Lars that Blue was now being standoffish.

"And at the end of era one the injectors used an acid based -"

"Ugh. This is so frustrating."

Peridot cocked her head at Blue Zircon. "Gem drills? Sure, this technology would be frustrating now but at the time, the advancements were -"

"No, not gem drills. This _entire situation_. How are we going to find out anything useful about _anything_ if we're always on the run?"

"Do you have a better idea?" asked Lars.

"I don't know, shouldn't we be investigating? Trying to sneak into Yellow Diamond’s palace? Reading old court records?"

"Do you really think if someone wanted to cover something up that badly, it would be written down in court records?"

"Well no but, there might be evidence of a cover up in court records... inconsistencies, things that don't add up, maybe records that are missing entirely...we won't know if we don't look."

"You might be comfortable going back to the courthouses, but I'm not." said Rhodonite.

"Well maybe if you unfused..." Zircon began.

Peridot cut her off. "Permafusions don’t like it when you ask them to unfuse. Believe me, I know." Rhodonite nodded appreciatively.

Blue Zircon glanced at Lars, who shrugged. "No offense, but I'd be thrilled if I never had to think about giant ladies ever again." He looked up at Fluorite. "Present company excluded, of course." Fluorite simply chuckled. "But I'm in no rush to have a run in with Yellow Diamond _or_ Blue Diamond any time soon."

“You know how I feel on the matter.” Fluorite said. But that wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. Maybe they knew how Atacamite and Celestite felt, but there had been no discussion of the things they had said once Fluorite was herself again. Whatever reconciliation of the two opposing viewpoints that had happened, were known to Fluorite and Fluorite alone.

Zircon exhaled in exasperation. “The Diamonds are hiding _something_. And we’re the only ones who know.” At least that wasn’t so much a _lie_ as it was a fudging of the truth, she thought. “The point is we should be doing something about it.”

"I don't think an unexpected run in with either of them would be in your best interest either, Blue." Lars pointed out.

Blue Zircon's eyes darted away from Lars. She hesitated. "Certainly not one with Yellow Diamond, that's for sure."

This caught Peridot’s attention. "What happened with Yellow Diamond?"

"Um, she poofed me."

"Ow. Why?"

"I may have accused her of murder."

"Okay, you beat me."

"Why, what did you do?"

"I called Yellow Diamond a clod."

"Well I'm sure lots of gems have done that." said Fluorite.

"To her face?"

"You didn't..." gasped Rhodonite.

"I did!" Peridot seemed proud of this fact.

Zircon loosened up a bit. "Well, even if she isn't at the center of a cover up, she is still a clod." Zircon had never really liked Yellow Diamond to begin with, but it was different being in a social situation where she was allowed to actually say it.

"Oh yeah,” Lars said, “I've been meaning to ask, what's a clod?"

"A not very nice word." said Fluorite.

"Yeah, I got that much. But curse words have different meanings and connotations, right?"

"A clod is a gem you don't like very much." said Zircon.

"A clod is someone who gets in your way." said Peridot.

"A clod is - a clod." said Rutile, and Lars had been content to leave it at that, until Padparadscha spoke up:

"Clod: an annoying clump of dirt."

"Padparadscha everyone," boasted Lars. "Maybe later I can tell you all about the many uses for the F word."

“What’s an - ‘eff’ word?” asked the Rutiles.

“Um, maybe not, Pink.” said Peridot.

"Oh no. You can't start calling me Pink too. Only Blue can call me that."

"Why?"

"Because then everyone will want to call me Pink and then I'll have to call everyone by their colors, and that'll be just too confusing. Rutile and Rhodonite are both red!" He said, pointing at the gems as he named them.

"Then why can Zircon call you Pink?" came Rhodonite’s voice, and Lars was reminded why he didn’t like crowds. It suddenly felt like there were a lot more people talking to him than there were.

"Because I call her Blue."

"Why?" ack. He wasn’t even sure who asked that.

"Um...to be honest, I didn't know what kind of gem she was, so I called her Blue and it stuck."

" _That's_ why you did that?" exclaimed Blue Zircon. "I thought you were just being a clod."

"Well, that too." said Lars.

Zircon rolled her eyes. “You could have just asked.”

“But what would the fun in that be? Besides, you should take it as a compliment. On Earth, a nickname is a sign of affection.”

"Oh no," groaned Peridot. "I'm being replaced."

Lars was caught off guard, the flow of his banter broken. "Replaced?"

"As your favorite gem."

"If I have to choose, then I'm pretty sure Steven is my favorite gem, what with bringing me back to life and all that." He punctuated his statement by playfully poking her. 

Peridot relented. "Oh, _alright_."

"But you're my favorite Peridot." 

"I'm the only Peridot you’ve met, aren't I."

"Yep."

Peridot sighed. "Good. You probably don't want to run into others."

"Well I have met other Peridots, and you're my favorite too." said Blue Zircon.

"Awwww, thanks.”

“You’re not going to tell her she’s your favorite Zircon?” teased Lars.

“Oh. I mean I _guess_ she is. Not my favorite Blue, mind you..."

“Okay, who's your favorite Blue?" Zircon asked, now curious.

"I'd be willing to bet my immortal life on the fact that Lapis is blue." said Lars.

Peridot blushed, looking at Zircon. "Yeah. But you’re pretty cool, too...aaand if you want to break into Yellow Diamond's courthouse, I'd be willing to help you. If she’s hiding something, I want to know about it."

"Does this mean we’re splitting up, then?" asked Lars incredulously. "I’m more concerned about finding a ship and getting back to Earth, not finding some courthouse."

“We can do both.” Peridot said. “We go to the courthouse, _then_ look for a ship. It’ll be quick.”

Lara gestured around him, indicating the environment. "Um, middle of nowhere, abandoned kindergarten you were just telling us about...ring a bell? Have fun trying to get _anywhere_ quickly."

"Can't you just teleport us there?"

"Can't I just...no! I can't teleport you! Can I?"

"The lion can teleport." she said matter of factly, as if it were a normal sentence.

"The lion..." Lars face palmed. "Steven, that would have been pretty useful information to tell me.” he said, speaking to the boy despite his absence. For all Lars knew, Steven might be able to hear him anyway, with all these magic powers that were cropping up. “Wait…does that mean I could teleport back to Earth?”

“I don’t think so. The lion barely managed to get us to the moon base. But since he can go that far, you should probably be able to teleport anywhere on Homeworld.”

“ _Jesus Christ_.” Lars muttered under his breath.

“Who?” asked Rhodonite.

“I don’t even think I could begin to explain that one.” Lars shook his head in disbelief. “Peridot, do you happen to know how Lion teleports?”

“Oh, sure. He makes an ‘arrragh’ sound and a portal thingy appears and he runs through it.” She demonstrated ‘portal thingy’ with a wiggle of her fingers.

“A roar?” He guessed. “Well, I can’t roar, but I can try something similar…” Ugh. Was he really going to do this? Don’t be embarrassed, he reminded himself. There’s no reason to be.

“eeeeeyyyeeeaaaaahhhhooooo!” He hollered, doing his best Tarzan-about-to-swing-from-a-tree impression. Nothing happened.

“Aye caramba koni-ni chawa wa,” he sang, imitating the opening of _The Lion King_. Metaphorically resonant, perhaps, but still nothing.

“Open sesame?” he asked the universe. Nothing.

“Okay, I give up.” He told Peridot.

“Maybe it’s not just about making a loud noise,” Blue Zircon suggested, “Maybe you have to have intentionality as to where you are going. Like have an image in your mind of your destination.”

“Exactly how am I supposed to do that? Everything down here is just caves and tunnels that all look the same, and the only places I’ve seen on the surface are ones I’m not really eager to go back to.”

“What if you tried to teleport to the injector drill we passed a while ago?” said Peridot.

“Injector drill?”

“You know, the one with the Calcite-made….you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Not a clue.”

Peridot made a frustrated noise.

"I predict, that Lars will need to practice his newfound teleportation skills! Perhaps he should use the location in which he carved his name into stone."

Well, he couldn't be stuck on an alien planet and not carve "Lars was here" somewhere, could he?

"That's a memorable location, but don't you think it's kind of far, Pads? What if I go there and I get stuck and can't come back?"

"That's why I suggested the drill." Peridot complained.

"Sorry, I got distracted." He said sheepishly. "Maybe like...describe it to me?"

"Hmm. Well in human terms, they are shaped much like some of the microscopic 'viruses' that attack your organic body’s incredibly weak defense systems."

Lars just gave her a blank stare.

"Um...a big metal thing that looks like a lollipop with a bunch of bent legs?" she tried.

"Oh. I think I remember that. uh...if I don't come back in a few minutes...I'm probably fine." he was laughing nervously.

"I can go with you, if you want." said Peridot.

Lars nodded gratefully. "Yeah, that would probably be better. Alright. um...portal OPEN." To his surprise, his shout transformed into something akin to yelling into one of those plastic tubes that you twirl to make eerie echo sounds. When they were kids, he and Ronaldo used to say they were "talking to aliens" with them, as if there wasn't a family of aliens that lived just across town.

The magic echo sound told him he was on the right track, but he was still startled by the swirling vortex of light that developed from it. He was supposed to go through that?

"Well here goes nothing..." he said, and ran for it. He didn't check to see if Peridot had followed.

Just before he hit the portal, he flinched and yelped, his every human reflex telling him he was about to hit into a solid wall. But not only did he not his a solid wall, he didn't even hit _solid ground_. A sense of panic washed over him as he realized he was floating in some sort of light tunnel. This was not what he expected when he head the word 'portal.' Weren't portals supposed to take you directly to where you wanted to go, not some middle ground way station? Where the heck even was this? Was he in the same dimension that lived in his hair? _What the hell was going on?_

He breathed a sigh of relief when, almost as suddenly as he had gone into the light tunnel, he was out of it again. Next to a giant robot drill.

It had worked.

He barely had anytime to celebrate before he was interrupted by the sound of Peridot shouting.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU WAIT FOR ME YOU CL-” she cut herself off when she saw where she was. She took in the sight of the drill, which had long since fallen over on it’s side. The annoyance from her face faded into a silent contemplation. Lars wanted to say something helpful, but he wasn’t sure what.

“Being called a clod twice in one day, do I get a medal for that?” Yeah, probably not that.

Peridot just stood there, frowning. “To think, the site of a drill in disrepair like this would have once made me depressed.” She laughed bitterly. “Now it just makes me feel guilty and confused. And depressed. But in a different way.”

“Do you need another pink-zombie pep talk?” Lars asked. “Teleportation included, no extra charge.”

Peridot bit her lip. “The Earth...”

“...is safer with you protecting it.” Lars provided.

Peridot shook her head. “No. This isn’t about me. The Earth...” She closed her eyes. “It isn’t the only one.”

The full meaning of those words came to Lars slowly, then all at once.

The Crystal Gems didn’t carry the weight of one world, or even two.

They carried the weight of thousands.

Lars had been so preoccupied running around and fighting and feeling homesick and worrying about his friends, that he hadn’t really considered what it all _meant_.

Long ago, the Earth had been invaded by an alien race with every intent on destroying it, and humanity barely gave them a _passing thought._  Before being abducted, _he_ had barely given them a passing thought, despite living in the same town as some of them. This much he knew. But what was worse, and what he hadn’t realized, was that _they had almost gotten away with it._ Rose’s army winning hadn’t been a guarantee. Hell, Rose’s army _forming_ hadn’t been a guarantee. They had expected to get away with it. No, they _did_ get away with it. Despite losing a Diamond, the gems were still advancing, still invading, still _getting away with it_ on other planets. How many planets had they decimated? How many species had they driven to extinction? How many murders? How many genocides?

Lars felt a rage bubbling up within him, a red hot anger he had felt a few times before. It was the protective anger of _use that word one more time_ when in the seventh grade, Kevin had told Lars to stop hanging out with faggots like Ronaldo. It was the anger that drove him to punch Kevin square in the jaw when he said it again, to pummel him into the ground long after it could have possibly been justified as self defense. It was the anger of having to endure _sit down young lady_ and _it’s not appropriate for little girls to act like that_ as he was punished but not Kevin, because apparently one moment of violence made years of verbal harassment okay, all the while repeating a mantra in his head: _I am not a girl. I am not a girl._

This was that anger, manifesting itself anew and a thousand times worse. He clenched his fists. His jaw locked. Hot tears stung at the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t care. Let them all be damned. He was _glad_ Pink Diamond had been shattered. She deserved it. He wanted Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond to be shattered. He wanted -

Peridot was looking up at him, trembling. She seemed at as much of a loss as to how to comfort him as he had been moments before when trying to comfort her. He just let the tears fall, suddenly feeling incredibly small.  

"What can I do for you?" Peridot asked.

Lars blinked, tears streaming down his face. "I think you had it right. It was never about you at all." He tried to wipe his eyes, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully. Giving up, he crouched down, and reached out an open palm to her. She took it in understanding.

"Come on," he said, giving her a weak smile, "We've got work to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, congratulations on getting through that. If you thought it was hard reading that last bit, imagine writing it at 2am...  
> Anyway, I am officially 21! My birthday was a few days ago, and in honor of it, instead of recommending a fic, I'm going to recommend some charities that I think are worthy of donating to.  
> First, I'd like to remind you that the Organization for Transformative Works, the group that runs Ao3, runs off of donations. They also work to legally protect fans and run a journal for academic papers about fandom, which if you didn't know is a thing that exists and is great. These are all things that are important to me, and if you're here I'm guessing they might be important to you. Wikipedia and Nanowrimo both also run off of donations.  
> I'd also recommend using tab for a cause, which gives you a "heart" every time you open a new tab which you can then donate to a charity you choose off of a list.  
> There's also the world community grid, a resource for scientific research to which you can donate extra computing power from your phone or computer.  
> if you want to get involved in politics but don't know how, then the ACLU and is an easy starting point, but there are also many other orgs dedicated to more specific political causes.  
> Water.org and other orgs that work to give people clean water are also good choices, but the truth is I'm barely scratching the surface of charities you can donate to! if you donate to any of these or another charity in honor of my birthday, be sure to let me know!


	9. Oh the Places You'll Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars practices his teleportation skills and explores Homeworld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains some discussions of suicidal thoughts. If that's a sensitive subject for you, proceed with caution. (I'd say sorry for the random turn to serious subjects, but I'm not really)

It took a few more rounds of low stakes practicing before Lars felt comfortable enough to be willing to teleport into a place swarming with Homeworld gems. Luckily, he didn't seem to need to have actually been to a place to be able to teleport there. If someone around him had a specific destination in mind and he focused on getting them where they wanted to be, it seemed to work okay too. Which was good, because Lars hadn't actually seen much of Homeworld thus far. But a side effect of his practicing was that was beginning to change. No longer was he limited to creepy abandoned life mines - he could now explore creepy abandoned factories and temples!

The main concern that Lars had through all this was that _nothing_ was structurally sound. This wasn't just because the places he visited had seen better days, but because none of them were shaped in any way that even _resembled_ a building. Everywhere he went was in the form of an upside down pyramid or a sphere or something equally ridiculous. _Just because your leaders are diamonds,_ Lars thought bitterly, _doesn't mean your buildings have to be_.

Lars was having fun exploring, though. He didn't stay in any one place very long, mostly because he didn't want to accidentally be discovered by anyone, but also because being separated from the group set him on edge. They had determined that it was best to only have one or two gems go with Lars at a time, so as to draw the least amount of attention possible. But Lars still had a lingering fear that his powers would somehow stop working and he would be stranded without his friends, though he knew this was probably unfounded.

Some places Lars visited were better than others. After calming down some from his visit to the drill, he and Padparadscha did go back to the place where he had carved “Lars was here,” at her request. Lars even carved “Pads too” underneath it when they got there, which she took great joy in when he had explained what he had written (apparently, pink translation magic did not extend to the written word).

“Are you okay?” she said quietly. “I could see you before.”

Lars didn’t need to ask what she was referring to. He had been crying, after all. Though, if she could see him in another location through her visions…

“Could you tell what I was thinking about?”

“No, not exactly. I just felt...feelings.”

“Ha. You and me both, squirt.”

....

After that, Peridot had gotten him to take her to a warehouse that to Lars was dark and unwelcoming, just as the Kindergartens had felt when he had first arrived. Everything was tinted grey or green, and the room was covered in a copious layer of filth throughout. From there, Peridot had gathered various pieces of metal which she had said were “components of limb enhancers.” They were from an old model and weren’t currently functional, but she thought with some tweaking with materials she had at the barn, she could get them working again. Lars didn’t know what any of this meant, but Peridot seemed happy about it, so he forgave the odd choice in location even though he opted not to stay there any longer than he had to.

He did a little more exploring with Peridot until the Twins of Rutile said they had a place they wanted to take him, too. Lars thought this was more of a wild card. Taking Peridot to unfamiliar places had gone fine, but the Rutiles didn’t really count as the same mind. They couldn’t, right? What would happen if he tried to take them both where they wanted to go, only they both wanted to go different places? Would he be ripped apart, and sent to multiple destinations simultaneously? That didn't seem like it followed the laws of physics, but hell, neither did teleportation itself, and he was already breaking that notion thoroughly. Hopefully, there were at least laws of magic that would prevent that from happening.

Though, he'd never noticed any instance of the twins disagreeing. They were too similar, he figured.  But just to be on the safe side, he decided to focus on only bringing one of them to the location they had in mind, and hoped he had picked the right one. Otherwise, he might have some awkward explaining to do.

Lars ended up picking the twin on the left, as he tended to think of her as the dominant one since she usually talked first. Though dominance was a tricky subject; though the left twin often talked first, the right twin often talked for much _longer_ than her double, and often the more heavy topics of discussion fell to her, so perhaps right twin was more dominant in that respect. Lars didn't particularly like differentiating them in this way, as it seemed to imply that he thought one twin was more important than the other, which was a just plain squicky thought. He didn't even really like differentiating them as the left and right twin - or  the ‘excited’ one and the ‘serious’ one, as he had started to think of them as - because they had talked about themselves as a much more cohesive single entity than that, and he didn't want to apply his human concepts of an individual self onto them if it didn't actually apply. In this instance, however, he felt like differentiation was necessary.

To Lars’ relief, he was not in fact split at the dimensional seams, with he and the Twins of Rutile appearing uneventfully (or as uneventful as magic teleportation could be) in a small cavern where a waterfall flowed in from the ceiling. When he saw it, he ran forward into the water and let it splash on his face and pool in his mouth. He maybe didn’t need to drink water anymore, but oh, was it refreshing to have the opportunity. And the water didn’t warp into his hair, thank goodness. He ran his fingers through it and relished in the feeling of his curls becoming soaked through. He hadn’t taken a shower in almost a week (had it really only been a few days since Steven’s trial? It felt much longer), and though his companions didn’t seem to mind his growing smell, there was just something beneficial to feeling clean. He rubbed his hands over his arms, sweat and grime spiraling down into the rocky basin below, where the water drained further into the depths of the caves that here, seemed natural instead of gem made. For a moment, it almost seemed like he was on Earth. But he wasn’t, and a troubling thought occurred to him.

“Um...Rutile? Do you know if this is actually water?”

This caused the left twin to giggle. "It is." she said.

"The minerals in it and soluble particles are probably slightly different than on Earth - but this place being Earth-like is why we brought you here."

Which brought up some interesting questions.

"What is this place? And how did you know it was Earth like?"

The Rutiles looked at each other and shared a grin.

"That's two questions - Which shall we answer first? - Shall I answer one and you the other? - Sure!"

Having had this conversation with each other, they both turned back to face Lars.

"We're underneath a terraforming station right now. Or not quite underneath it, but nearby. But Lapis Lazulis tend to send water everywhere, which causes a lot of drainage and overflow. So, that's where all the water is coming from."

"And the reason we know about it is because Rutiles are surveyors. We were made for determining the potential for planets to be colonized. We’ve never done that, but..." the twin on the right trailed off, and for once her counterpart didn’t say anything else.

“It’s like you do the same thing scouting for hiding places down here,” Lars supplied, and then he groaned and rolled his eyes. “Great, now I’m finishing your sentences too.”

At this, both twins recoiled.

“Are you - uncomfortable with our speech pattern?”

Lars’ eyes went wide. “No! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

He could tell his attempt at backtracking didn’t do much to help matters. Not only were the twins not meeting his eyes, they weren’t meeting each other’s eyes, either. They had both independently decided that the best place to look was the ground.

“Shit.” Lars muttered. “I am the asshole of all assholes.” This was it. This was the moment he’d ruined everything. The twins would hate him now, and the other off colors would take Rutile’s side, and it would all fall apart just like it always did.

“I’m just...really sorry.” he said again.

“No it’s - fine.”

“No, it’s _not_ . Back home, before all this, I was a jerk. I’ve been trying really hard not to be since I got here, but maybe I’m just a jerk at heart. You’d think I of all people would know not to judge anyone, but I judge _everyone_. God, the only reason I'm so afraid of people judging me is because do it so much! I always judged Steven, I judge Sadie, I judge Ronaldo, I mega-judge Kevin even though my life would probably be so much simpler if I never thought about him...I'm just like...judgey McJudge face! I don't know what's wrong with me." Through this, Lars was becoming particularly violent towards the water around him, sending it in flying in different directions and splashing the twins.

"There's nothing anymore wrong with you than there is with us." "There's nothing wrong with us."

"Yeah," Lars said, "There's something wrong with your whole goddamned society, but not you guys."

The Rutiles’ left hand went to their gem. The right twin looked at her duplicate in concern. Then suddenly, they were arguing in rapid succession.

“If it wasn’t for me - _don’t start_ \- but it’s _true_ \- it’s not your fault - I’m the one who branches off! If it wasn’t for me you’d be up there.” They riffed off each other with a fluency that was only possible if one already knew what the other person was going to say. Clearly, this was an argument that they had hashed out before, perhaps many times. That, or they communicated partially through telepathy, which wasn’t out of the question.

“Would you stop saying that! How many times do I have to say I’d rather have _you_ , I don’t care for the alternative at all.” “But you’d be better off. You wouldn’t have to run all the time.”

Right then and there, Lars realized that he might have been wrong about the twins. He had been trying to think of them as one gem, and they still were that. But they were two gems, too. Maybe their minds weren’t linked, maybe having your conversations in lock step was just the result of spending thousands of years with someone. Or maybe it was a combination of both. That seemed more likely. Honestly, he should probably just stop making assumptions about how his _alien friends_ worked - he kept getting it wrong.

Lars, ever the expert at conflict resolution, or rather whatever the exact opposite of an expert was, filled his cheeks with water and and squirted it in the direction of the twins. He didn’t actually hit either of them, but the stream jetting right between their faces distracted them from their argument and caused them both to turn and look at him.

“Oh, come on,” he said, opting then to just splash them with his hands instead, “You guys are such _sisters_.”

“You have told us the meaning of this word ‘sisters’ before,” “But how is it now relevant?”

“Do you guys even _hear_ yourselves? You guys are literally fighting about how much you care about each other. The amount of sisterly love in here is making me sick.”

“You’re becoming physically ill?” asked the left twin. “Do we need to -”

“No, no. I wasn't speaking literally. I was just teasing you.”

“Oh.” she said, though she still looked unsure.

“Look, I get it,” Lars said. “I’ve felt exactly like you before. Wondering if people would be better off without you. But I’m telling you, that cycle of self-loathing will get you nowhere fast. You can’t _change_ the fact that you exist. Or, maybe you could, but you shouldn’t. Not without causing a lot of suffering. I...to be honest I’ve probably thought too much about this stuff.” Lars said this with a casual shrug, as if admitting he thought too much about video games instead of suicidal ideation. “It’s kind of ironic, really, that _I_ of all people became immortal. Because for awhile there I wasn’t quite sold on the...you know...whole...being alive...thing. And sure part of that was because of things that weren’t my fault but...just trust me. It’s not a pretty road to go down. It’s just better to focus on the positive things and the things you _can_ control instead of what you wish could be different but can’t. Besides, it’s not like anyone actually believes the things you think about yourself but you. Anyone that actually matters, at least. Like even if we assume that _she_ would be better off without you, which is nonsense, I certainly wouldn’t be. If you two hadn’t been patrolling the Kindergartens at just the right moment, who _knows_ what would have happened to me and Steven.”

Somehow, during the course of the human’s rambling, the two-in-one gem had drifted closer and closer, and the Twins of Rutile were now standing within arms reach of Lars.

“Lars...” they both cried in tandem, practically pouncing on him as they went in for a hug.

Lars was slightly startled, but the surprise was a pleasant one. A hug from the twins was a curious feeling; two soft arms supported his back as two heads nuzzled into his shoulders and cheeks. He crooked his elbows around each of their necks, letting himself be enveloped by love and warmth. The Rutiles were strong, though, and he was secretly glad that he probably didn’t need to breathe anymore. Not to mention, the ever present water was still dripping down his face. If he blew out a gust of air, it would probably send droplets flying from his lips. At least the water made it that if Lars had been crying, it wasn’t visible.

“See what I mean?” Lars choked out. “Too much sisterly love. You’re smothering me with it.”

But even as he said this, Lars wasn’t about to let them break the embrace. And so they stood there together for a very long time; the two who were always together and the one who was always alone, hearts and limbs all tangled up, just letting the water pour down on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this chapter, I hope the wait was worth it! part of it was because I went on a trip, but part of it was because there was supposed to be another scene in this chapter but the chapter was getting way too long. So, "Lars explores and talks about feelings" is going to come to you in two parts! Plus, I really wanted to make sure I got the Twins of Rutile right and properly shine the spotlight on them, because I feel like I've been neglecting them as characters and arguably been writing them somewhat wrong. I think in the past I've been good at showing the "they're connected" aspect of their dialogue but not so much the "they're different" aspect. They're dialogue is still vague as to who's talking in a lot of places, which was intentional, but I also wanted to portray them as individuals. I think I've probably redeemed myself with this scene here, which might not of happened if I hadn't taken a step back and taken the time to work on the scene that it needed. If I had tried to force it, we probably wouldn't have the beautiful hug image this ended with.  
> And yeah, Lars was suicidal at one point. This probably surprises literally no one, but still. This has been a fact in my mind since day one of this fic, though I had been planning on waiting to bring it up until another point in the story, it felt appropriate to bring it up here. Lars still has a lot of learning to go in this fic, but I'm just so proud of him in this moment. 
> 
> This is not technically a recommendation as I already recommended it, but some of the Rutiles' dialogue was inspired by/ripped off from Performing CPR, so re-shout out to that!  
> and this is not a fanfiction but this animation has a drawing of a Rutile hugging Lars and also might have made me cry so watch it:  
> [Wherever You Are Animatic](https://youtu.be/sZJVmsGdu80)


	10. I'm Only a Crack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lars goes with Rhodonite to one of Pink Diamond's temples, and learns things about her life.

The cave waterfall had been gorgeous, but probably the most compelling place Lars saw in his practicing was the building where Rhodonite took him. When he focused on her, he found himself in the center of a colorful hexagonal room, surrounded by murals of the Diamonds on every side, a ceiling of glass or something similar letting light in from a purple-pink sky.

As near as Lars could tell, this temple might as well have been titled "The Life and Times of Pink Diamond." One wall was a painting of Pink Diamond stepping onto her palanquin, Blue Diamond behind her with an arm outstretched. The wall next to it showed her and Yellow Diamond facing one another, Yellow with a scowl on her face and hands on her hips, Pink with her hands clasped in front of her, as if in pleading. The sharp military lines of Yellow Diamond were contrasted perfectly by the soft elegance that was Pink Diamond, who wore a draping, flowing dress that even in the painting looked like it was about to blow away. If Lars were to guess, he would have said the two Diamonds were in some sort of stand off. Another mural depicted Pink Diamond bowing to someone in a throne who, based off of the motif they were going for, Lars guessed was probably another Diamond. Lars didn't know anything about White Diamond, he hadn't even known she existed until now, but he added her to his mental list of gems he didn’t want to have a run in with. By the looks of it, either all Diamonds bowed submissively to one another, which he kind of doubted, or White Diamond was somehow _above_ Pink Diamond in rank, possibly even above Yellow and Blue Diamond. And leader of the gem leaders equaled bad news for Lars. Or any of them, for that matter. Lars felt that anger welling up inside of him again, but he opted to just focus on the beauty of the the pictures and try to ignore what they meant.

Which proved to be utterly impossible as soon as he turned around to see what murals were behind him. He gasped.

Rhodonite beamed. "Enchanting, isn't it?"

"Rhodonite...that's Earth."

"It is! Oh." Rhodonite said, her voice shifting from pride in her chosen location to dejection in a matter of three words. "Should I not have brought you here?"

"No, it's great. It's just.. _that's the Earth_." he repeated, awe dripping from his voice like honey.

And it was. Directly in front of him was the door to the temple, and on that wall was a waist up mural of Pink Diamond that was larger and more intricate than any of the other pictures of her. Her gem served as the door frame, and above that her hands were cupped, hovering just underneath the blue and green planet that Lars knew so well. That they were all trying to get to. Pink Diamond was looking at the Earth with a child-like wonder, not unlike the expression Lars wore on his face. She was surrounded by floating pink stars, or possibly gems, her hair drifting weightless above her. Seeing her like this, Lars didn't see the face of a conqueror or monster, but of a benevolent spirit. It was a lie, he knew, but he felt a tear forming at the corner of his eye. He forced himself to look away.

The last two murals depicted Pink Diamond with her subjects. In one, Pink Diamond was crouched down with her hand outstretched to a small peach colored gem. In the other, this time it was Pink Diamond sitting on a throne. At her feet stood three gems. The largest one - still dwarfed by Pink Diamond in comparison - was also pink and had oversized ringlets in her hair. The way she stood wasn’t how Lars expected someone facing a Diamond to stand, but was instead a posture of relaxed confidence and perhaps defiance. Behind her stood a white gem that was probably a Pearl, and a blue and pink gem with fluffy hair that reminded Lars of cotton candy.  The Pearl was standing at attention, but the cotton candy gem stood balancing on only one leg, with the other foot wrapped around her ankle, her arms arranged gently with one hand dangling downwards and the other placed on her elbow as if she was hugging herself. She had a wistful look about her. _What's with all these soft flower children?_ Lars wondered. Looking closer, he saw that the pink gem was holding something in her hands - a darker pink shield, though she held it out flat as opposed to in a defensive position. As a matter of fact, Lars had seen a shield that looked just like that. And slowly, he was connecting the dots.

"That's Steven's shield," he muttered, "that's Rose?"

Rhodonite nodded.

"And that's not just any Pearl, that's our Pearl." He didn’t recognize the cotton candy gem, but he figured she must have been a Crystal Gem as well.

Rhodonite coughed into her hands, and Lars realized his mistake. "Um, you know what I mean."

Rhodonite let his slip-up slide.

"Earth's Pearl." She supplied.

"Can't use that one for long." He said, eyes drifting back to the mural of Earth. "Beach City's Pearl, maybe. Depending on where you decide to live, I guess."

Rhodonite shrugged. “Maybe you should just call her ‘the Pearl that’s not Rhodonite’s Pearl’ instead.”

Lars laughed. “I don’t think she’d appreciate that. And counterpoint: Garnet’s part Ruby too. What if they made a second Rhodonite?”

Rhodonite smiled at him sweetly. “That would be kinda funny, but...” she trailed off, taking a few steps towards the mural of the crystal gems. “I don’t think they’d do that.” She gently ran the fingers of one hand along the image of the cotton candy gem, a gesture which greatly confused Lars.

"I'd always wondered what she was like, but I never thought I'd actually get to meet her." murmured Rhodonite.

"Wait, you mean that's _Garnet?_ " Lars practically screeched.

"Yeah. I had the same reaction when I met her. She doesn't look anything now like she did back then."

"She doesn't just look different, she acts different." Lars babbled in utter disbelief. "Garnet is a lot of things, but she's not bashful or unsure of herself."

"She was facing a Diamond, after all. Imagine that - your very existence is a defiance; an abomination. And yet still, she stood openly in almost all the rebel negotiations with Pink Diamond, as if to say, I dare you to see me for what I am. That must have taken an incredible amount of courage. It's way more than I've ever done."

Lars blinked. Trying to reconcile this new information about Garnet was hard enough, but now he felt as if a mental itch had just developed, and he was compelled to scratch it. "There were negotiations?"

Rhodonite nodded somberly. "They weren't ultimately successful, for obvious reasons, but at one point Pink Diamond was very insistent that the conflicts on her colony could be solved diplomatically. I think she felt like she had something to prove to the other Diamonds."

And there it was, the reason for the itch, Lars realized. "If Pink Diamond was trying to solve things diplomatically, then why on _Earth_ would Rose Quartz shatter her? And why would people think she shattered her? She was a rebel, not stupid."

"Those are good questions, and not ones that I had entirely considered until now. One thing is that the negotiations aren't very well known by newer gems, but since I was higher up in Pink Diamond's court - or our Morganite at least was - we got to see more of what was going on first hand." Rhodonite's lower palms flipped upwards and rose to grasp her other pair of hands, a feat of body language impossible for anyone with less than four of them but which Lars took to be a gesture of self comfort. "As far as those of us who did know, I think we supposed that the negotiations were going sour or that the rebels never had a vested interest in the negotiations in the first place. But if she really wasn't shattered by Rose Quartz and someone else wanted to sabotage the negotiations..." Her fingers fidgeted in a spidery dance, but remained intertwined. "I don't know. I just don't know. Rose Quartz has always been painted as the villain of the war for Earth, so it's hard to know the truth from propaganda."

"Well, she wasn't painted as a villain here," Lars said, pointing at the image of Rose. "Who painted this anyway? Whoever it was obviously had great respect for Pink Diamond but...the Crystal Gems aren't evil caricatures of themselves. They're painted with the same respect. Hell, why would someone even paint them at all if they’re the villains of your society?"

Rhodonite's hands relaxed and let go of one another, and she made a sweeping gesture to indicate the room. "This was probably all painted by Pink Diamond's Pearl. She would have been in the best position to have witnessed the important events in Pink Diamond's life and record them with accuracy. Besides that, Pearls are excellent artists." Rhodonite gave Lars a small wink.

“What happened to Pink Diamond’s Pearl? After...you know.” Lars asked.

“She disappeared soon after her Diamond was shattered. My guess is, she got stuck on Earth and corrupted.”

"Then this wasn't painted as a memorial?"

"No. She might have partly been directed by Pink Diamond herself in what events to depict, actually. We're in a temple not too far from Pink Diamond's palace, which is basically sacred ground now. But this place? It celebrates things that the other Diamond's courts would rather not be celebrated. It's too...reverent of a place that not many think deserves reverence."

For some reason, instead of glancing back at the picture of Earth, Lars' eyes flicked towards the image of Pink Diamond crouching down, and he realized with a sickening feeling that the peach figure had not been drawn with the same intricacy that the Crystal Gems were, as if it did not represent anyone specific but instead was meant to be a vague representational stand in of...a whole species. It wasn’t a picture of a gem, but of a human.

The weight of that realization caused Lars to take a step back, which in turn caused him to be thrown off balance and lose his footing. Stabilizing himself, he looked down. "Oh, for the love of..." he mumbled.

The floor, it turned out, was comprised mostly of a large, pink colored diamond shape, which had a crack running right down its middle. Whether this was done intentionally or if the universe just had a peculiar sense of coincidence, Lars didn't know. Either way, it caused a rush of conflicting emotions for Lars.

"Come on, why did everything have to be _pink_." he shouted in frustration, and kicked the diamond on the floor for good measure. “To think I was starting to like this god damned color.”

Rhodonite was taken aback by Lars' sudden outburst. Her fingers pressed together into a nervous steeple, and two more hands ran through her hair. "I don't think I know what you mean. It is...it _is_ Pink Diamond's temple."

Lars shut his eyes tightly. "That's not what I mean. I mean, why did it have to be _Pink_ Diamond? Why did _I_ have to be pink? Why did I have to be the same as her?"

Rhodonite's eyes widened in dawning realization. "You're upset because you don’t like Pink Diamond?"

“God, I don’t know!” He sank to near the ground, blinking forcefully. “How can I hate her when I never even knew her! But I hate what she did to my planet, or what she wanted to do. Or maybe not what she wanted to do, if these murals are any indication. But they were still going to do it, weren't they? I don't know, she doesn't look like I expected her to. If anything, she kinda reminds me of Steven. Except giant, and way more terrifying. And possibly actually evil. Urrgh.” Lars rested his head on his arms and properly sat down, closing himself into a curled-up sitting fetal position. After he had settled, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders and another on his sides. He felt a smile creep up on him despite himself. “Thanks.”

“I don’t think she was evil.” Rhodonite said after a moment of silence. “It wasn’t all bad.”

Lars swallowed the lump in his throat and looked up at her. “What makes you say that?”

She sighed. “Gems are made to serve their Diamonds. But it’s more than that. It’s...an innate part of us. Over the course of my life I've grown to question some of the decisions my Diamond made and the efficacy of her leadership, but I'm fighting my very nature by doing so. And even after all this time, some part of me still admires her, even loves her. Pearl and Ruby, they were never really unhappy under her rule. Incomplete, maybe, but not enough that we noticed. But after she died...everyone was unhappy. Imagine a whole society grieving. The gems in Pink Diamond's court, we had nothing to do _but_ grieve. It was horrible. Pearl and Ruby found some solace and comfort in each other, but in doing so defied the very Diamond they were grieving. It's strange, having so much respect for someone that wouldn't respect me at all if she met me.”

Lars just sat there on the cracked stone, and hated himself for empathizing with the gems who had mourned Pink Diamond's death, when a huge part of him still believed that she must have _deserved_ it. Was that a selfish thing for him to think?

Finally, he voiced his thoughts out loud. "Do you think that it was a good thing Pink was shattered?"

Lars felt Rhodonite's hands leave his back as she instead opted to sit down next to him. "I don't think so. I mean, if she hadn't been, there's a very good chance that I wouldn't exist as myself, as Rhodonite, but I still couldn't bring myself to wish death on anyone."

"I could,"  Lars grumbled. Rhodonite placed a hand on Lars' knee.

"Well I could! I do! There are some things you don't get second chances from. There are some things so horrible that there have to be consequences. Desecrating entire societies, waltzing around the galaxy like you can take whatever you want, that counts as unforgivable in my book. Maybe I'm wrong and Pink Diamond was innocent in all this, but gosh darn it _someone_ had to pay for all the things that the Diamonds have done. The karmic justice of the universe was going to catch up with Homeworld sooner or later."

"That doesn't sound like justice," said Rhodonite hesitantly. "That sounds like vengeance."

"Yeah? So what? So what if I want people who do terrible things to be punished?"

“Punishment is one thing, but shattering is another. Maybe it’s different for a species surrounded by death. But gems, we don’t take death lightly.”

Lars placed a hand on his chest. “We don’t take death lightly, either. For us, taking a human life is the worst crime you can commit. And I may not have paid that much attention in history class, but I know for a _fact_ that the gems that came to Earth committed massacres. Sure, there are exceptions and rationales for killing during a war, but it was never a fair fight to begin with. Gems had guns and ships, humans had sharp pointy sticks. We didn’t stand a chance.”

“So, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You think, because the Diamonds are responsible for the deaths of humans, they deserve the same fate.”

Lars shrugged. “Something like that, I guess.”

“Then, doesn’t that make whoever is responsible for their death _also_ deserving of that fate? Would you then have to find someone else to kill them, too?”

Suddenly, Lars burst out laughing. “Great. The politics came with me. If only they could have stayed behind on Earth. Let’s just agree to disagree, shall we?"

Rhodonite nodded and stood up, then reached out three hands to help Lars up.

“Don’t think I don’t understand your anger. I do. You know as well as I do that the Diamonds would have us both sentenced to death, just as you would have them sentenced to it. You both think you have the moral high ground. From my personal perspective, you’re more right than they are. But even still, I’d always choose to avoid shattering if at all possible.”

Lars grunted. “That makes sense, I guess.”

“Bubbling, though...bubbling is another story. I’d have my Morganite bubbled indefinitely in an instant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this chapter came from the Linkin Park song "Castle of Glass." I wanted to title it after a Linkin Park song, it was just a question of which one. I know my fic deals with some pretty intense things, so I'd just like to refer anyone who needs them to some mental health resources:  
> [AFSP Resources ](https://afsp.org/find-support/resources/)  
> For my fic recommendation there is a Rhodonite fic entitled "Our Beautiful Depravity" and it definitely planted the seeds of the imagery of this chapter in my mind, as it also depicts Rhodonite in a Pink Diamond temple.  
> [ **Our Beautiful Depravity**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11424012) (2572 words) by [**CloudDreamer** ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer)[ ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer)  
>  And on the self promo front, there are two things I'd like to refer you to. If you haven't already seen it, I've started a second fic called "The Doctor That Tried to Cure Everything" which focuses on Connie's mother, so you should totally read that. Also, if watching people ramble for 12 minutes sounds like your cup of tea (or you just want to see what I look like), I made a vlog where I talk about fandom things in a somewhat coherent manner, but not really: 
> 
> [My Relationship with Art and Fandom](https://youtu.be/1cgpO5BJ7iw)


	11. Another Gem Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zircon has a plan. It's probably a bad plan, but it's a plan.

"Lady Blue, it is I, your Pink Knight, at your service. May I have the pleasure of escorting you on your journeys?"

Zircon didn't totally get the joke, but she played along with it and bowed back to Lars anyway. "You may, oh Pink One."

“And Lady Green, shall you be joining us as well?”

Peridot scrunched up her face. “What are you doing?”

“We’re going on a quest, are we not?” Lars declared.

Zircon laid a tentative hand on Peridot’s shoulder. “He’s messing with you, Green.”

Peridot let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, I realize that. My point is, ‘messing with’ me is not exactly the most productive way to prepare for committing an act of treason.”

“Point taken,” Lars said. “Zircon, what’s the plan?”

It had been decided upon that the heist team would only be Lars, Zircon, and Peridot. Fluorite and Rhodonite didn't want to be involved, and Rutile and Padparadscha would have both drawn too much attention. Not that Lars _wasn't_ going to stick out like a sore thumb, but he was their escape route, so he'd just have to be careful not to be spotted.

"We’re looking for any files that pertain to Rose Quartz, the War, or Pink Diamond. We don’t need to read them while we’re there; it’s better to bring them back to the Kindergarten to read. This is a stealth mission. The room we’re going to does not usually have many gems in it since it’s mostly storage, but this doesn’t hold true for the rest of the building. So we want to get in and out as quickly as possible. If anyone sees us, we should pretend like we belong.  We should only dissipate their form as a last resort so they won’t notify others of our presence."

“Dissipate their form?” Lars asked.

“Yes, I know that poofing gems seems extremist but given that we’re all already terrorists anyway we look at it...”

“Oh I’m totally down to be a terrorist against a tyrannical government, I just don’t know what it means to ‘poof’ someone or how to go about doing it.”

Zircon raised a monocled eyebrow. “Lars, you’ve _seen_ me poofed before.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I understand it. If a Diamond had squished a human like that, they’d be dead.”

Zircon seemed at a loss for words, so Peridot explained in her place. “It depends on the gem, but generally speaking a blow strong enough to incapacitate a human can probably force someone back into their gem. But for some soldier gems it will take more force.”

“And you guys just _recover_ from that?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Jesus, no wonder you guys live such a long time. Violence has basically no meaning to you!”

“Well if the gem itself is damaged, then -” Peridot started.

“Yeah but I mean, _besides_ that. You guys are basically the real life version of video game villains that get ‘knocked out’ when you attack them instead of killed so the creators can claim they’re not promoting homicide.”

“Er, what?” said Zircon.

“It means that I could go all ‘anti-hero vigilante’ on as many gems as I want except without the moral quandaries that come with being an anti-hero vigilante.”

“Actually, getting poofed can be a terrifying experience,” Peridot began, then shrugged. “But if by moral quandary you only mean one with killing people for the sake of convenience, then basically, yes.”

“Sweet!” Lars said, perhaps slightly too enthusiastically. “Let’s do this.”

A benefit of having practiced his newfound power so much was that he now had a system developed that he was comfortable with. Though experience had taught him that a gem technically could follow him into a portal unguided, it was much easier for everyone involved if whoever he wanted to teleport was holding on to him in some fashion before he even made the portal. In this case, he scooped up Peridot onto his shoulders piggyback ride style, and told Blue Zircon to put her arm around his. Then he shout-sang, “CAMPTOWN RACES SING THIS SONG” to open up a portal.

They spent longer than average inside the portal, but Lars was starting to get used to the feeling of floating on light. It was like, the moment between being asleep and being awake, when you’re not sure where dreams begin and reality ends. Not that Lars had experienced that anytime recently - he hadn’t slept since he had died. Maybe he should try doing that sometime _not_ right before a heist.

At the other end of the portal Lars stepped into a huge room that consisted of shelves and shelves of...hanging file folders? Yes, he was standing in an aisle between rows, with dozens of racks on either side of him. When he looked down either end of the aisle, he saw no gems and felt an overwhelming sense of relief. Where was he, some kind of gem library?

"You court gems store your records on paper?" Peridot asked, incredulous. "That is highly inefficient."

Blue Zircon rolled her eyes. "We don't, not in Blue's Court at least. Even most of the older files in her court have had digital copies made of them. I even personally entered a few of them into the system myself when I was in my hundreds."

Lars cleared his throat and gave her a glance that said "get to the point."

"But I digress. The point is, there's very little paper in Blue Diamond's courthouses. But Yellow Diamond is straight up paranoid. The amount of backups Yellow's Court keeps is borderline ridiculous. Everything in her court has to have both multiple digital and paper copies. The idea behind that being that paper is unhackable. You can, however, pick paper up and steal it. I guess they thought no one would be stupid enough to try."

"Oh, that's a real vote of confidence there, Blue." Lars said. "Just one small problem."

"What's that?"

"I can't read Gem." Lars pointed out, gesturing to the unfamiliar markings that presumably indicated the contents of folders.

Blue Zircon sighed. "You probably wouldn't know what to look for, anyway. How about you be our look out, and leave the looking for files to me." She turned to address Peridot. "It would, however, still be beneficial if we can hack into the computer systems here."

Peridot held out her tablet proudly. "Done and done. The Diamonds can't protect themselves from being hacked by technology they don't know exists." She finished off this declaration with a mischievous snicker.

Suddenly, Blue Zircon hushed Peridot, and they could hear the distinct click-clack of high heels walking on a cement floor.

"Larsss!" Zircon hissed. "Hide yourself. Now."

Lars didn't need to be told twice. He quickly dove behind a shelf, and noticed Peridot discreetly slip her tablet into a folder. The sound of steps got closer and closer, then abruptly stopped.

“What are you two doing in here, exactly?” came a stern voice. Whoever she was, she reminded Lars of his middle school principal, who always smelled too much like store-brand hand soap.

"We're uh...looking for files." Lars heard Zircon say. She wasn't wrong, but Lars sort of wanted to slap her for that.

"Let me rephrase: why are a _Blue_ _Zircon_ and a _Peridot_ without her limb enhancers looking for files in my records room?"

Lars could hear Zircon's gulp even from his hiding place. "Um, well you see...this Peridot has multiple outstanding cases against her by Yellow Diamond, and I have been assigned as her legal escort by the Blue Court to deliver her to this court and gather the case files for her trial."

Zircon made a high pitched groaning noise, and if Lars were to guess he would say it was because Peridot stepped on her foot or otherwise expressed her annoyance through subtle violence, though he had no way to confirm this theory. He tried to adjust his position in order to see better. Through the folders, he managed to catch a glimpse of the gem that was questioning them: she had bright red-orange skin and wasn't much taller than Zircon, but was of a stockier build. Based on the way she looked, he thought his earlier "principal" assumption had been spot on.

"A Peridot is assisting in the preparation of her own case? That is highly unusual."

"It is indeed unusual, but uh...the particulars of this case involve highly technical details familiar only to Peridots, and she has proven to be cooperative thus far."

The red gem leaned menacingly towards Peridot. "Is this true?"

Instinctively, Peridot's arms formed the Diamond salute. "Yes ma'am." Then, improvising, she added, “That’s also why I don’t have my limb enhancers. As a precaution to limit my ability to escape.”

The red gem sighed. "I realize the Blue Court has its eccentricities, but I have to say that letting defendants walk around unrestrained even with a legal escort is an ill-advised practice. Let your superiors know that in the future, if they must keep sending criminals to my courthouse in this manner, the least they can do is send along a Ruby guard as well. Additionally, you must follow proper admittance procedure. You should have signed her into the system and informed me of her presence. Come with me, we will get this oversight rectified."

"Of course, Fire Agate. Will we be going to your office?" Peridot exaggerated, in a voice that was sure to carry to Lars.

The Agate flinched at Peridot’s volume, but didn’t seem suspicious of it. “No, if you must know we are going to the front desk of the building.”

“OH RIGHT, the front desk of the building. Will we be coming back to the records room?”

The Agate pursed her lips. “Perhaps. If everything is in order.”

"Yes, indeed!" Zircon bellowed, throwing her voice in the same manner as Peridot. "We should come back or else we might just have to rely on SOMEONE ELSE finding our files for us."

"There's something important in one of the files I was standing by!" Peridot added. Zircon shot her a 'be careful' glance.

"Quit your yammering," the Agate chided, "You lost your right to complain the moment you decided you were above the law."

"I am not above the law. I am below the law. Very, very below." Peridot assured her.

"I see you weren't lying about her being cooperative." The Agate commented in an uncharacteristically cheery voice. At that, Lars heard a whooshing sound, followed by another whooshing sound a few seconds later, and was almost positive that a door had just opened for the three gems and closed behind them.

Great. Now what the hell was he supposed to do? He had no idea what was beyond those doors, but he was fairly certain that if he tried to follow them, he’d be spotted for sure. But he didn’t have to follow them right away, that’s what he’d practiced his teleporting so much for. He could easily go to wherever they were at anytime, and bring them back to the records room. But if he did that, he’d probably blow their cover. Or, he’d blow Zircon’s cover, seeing as Peridot didn’t have much of a cover to begin with.

Ugh. He knew what he _should_ have done. He should have taken advantage of the fact that the Agate hadn’t seen him and snuck up on her and tackled her from behind. Zircon had told them they should be wary about poofing gems, but still! That would have given them a ticking clock until someone discovered the Agate missing and came looking, but at least they wouldn’t have been separated.

God, why did he have to be so bad at this? Why was he so useless? He shouldn't have frozen the moment he was faced something slightly difficult!

There was still a chance they might come back here, though. Zircon might be able to talk her way out of the mess she made. After all, she had managed to bullshit a plausible excuse for her being there on the spot. Maybe Zircon knew what she was doing. In retrospect, they should have probably discussed that beforehand, but it was too late for that now. He had to deal with the situation at hand.

Zircon had told him to look for the files himself, hadn't she? Should he just do that and trust that Zircon had a plan? His instincts told him that he should be acting, that he should go after them and be all heroic. But he didn't even know if he was capable of that. Staying put sort of seemed like the coward’s way, but maybe he was a coward. God dammit Lars, stop debating with yourself and _do something!_

Okay. Best case scenario. Zircon's ruse goes smoothly and Zircon and Peridot return to the records room in no time. Worst case scenario? Well the worst case scenario would be the two gems getting shattered, and Lars getting re-killed or taken to some sort of torture chamber and experimented on. Um, best not to dwell on that possibility. Medium case scenario? Supposing someone realized that Zircon wasn't there for the reasons she said she was, what would they do with her and Peridot? They could shatter them, but it would probably be more useful to hold them for questioning, at least for awhile. In an interrogation room somewhere? Lars could work with that. It would give him some time. In either case, Lars was the one of the team who would be most able to complete their original mission of finding information on Pink Diamond, so he'd focus on that, and worry about rescuing his friends later.

Excccept he _still_ couldn't read Gem.

"Er - hey, pink translation magic? Could you help me out here a little? Just this once?"

Lars got no answer from either his magic or the symbols on the shelves. He did, however, feel an unrelated tingle in the back of his neck.

Oh, please. Not now.

"Steven, don't you dare," Lars warned under his breath before the boy had even come out. Of course, Steven didn't listen.

....

Meanwhile, Blue Zircon was trying not to panic, and mostly failing. Every so often, Peridot would stare daggers at her to remind her just how much her plan sucked. The two of them were now following the Agate through a section of the courthouse that was bustling with Gem activities. They passed maybe half a dozen Hyacinth Zircons and a few Thorites, but luckily no one she knew personally. Maintaining her subterfuge depended entirely on no one recognizing her...which given the fact that they were in a _courthouse_ , it was a miracle it hadn't happened yet. A few Gems had bristled when they saw her, but they so far had all seemed merely annoyed that a Blue Zircon was in their midst, rather than noticed she was a fugitive.

Fire sensed Blue Zircon's discomfort, but attributed it to something else entirely.

"I know the Blue and Yellow Court have their differences, but it really is wonderful when we can work together on matters like this."

"Urm, yeah. I agree," Zircon affirmed, knowing full well that this probably wasn't the best time to share her actual opinion on the Yellow Court. She might not get out of this alive as it was without stirring up extra trouble. So, she went along with it.

"And you know, a loss to the Blue Court is a loss to all of us court gems. Did you hear about the Zircon that was shattered for defecting to help the rebel Rose Quartz escape? Oh, who am I kidding? You probably knew her."

Zircon opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Did she know? No, the Agate seemed genuine. Besides, if she knew who Zircon was, she probably would have done something about it, wouldn't she? Unless she was doing something about it and they were being led into a trap. After all, this had all been a bit...too easy. Could this Agate be stringing them along and lying just as much as Zircon was? It was hard to tell. If the Agate was telling the truth, and everyone thought she was dead, then that would explain why she was able to walk through here so easily. No one was even on the lookout for a fugitive Zircon. When she thought about it, it actually made perfect sense that Blue Diamond would give her such a rock solid cover. But still, something about the whole situation seemed _off_ to Zircon.

"Yes," Zircon squeaked out, "We were...close."

"Oh, I'm sorry if I've touched on a sensitive subject," said Fire, clearly noticing Zircon's hesitancy. "Though you know, it probably wasn't totally her fault. Rose Quartz is known to be very persuasive, who knows what kinds of twisted tactics she uses to get gems on her side! It's like she corrupts everyone she comes in contact with!"

Peridot laughed nervously. "Ah, yes, that Rose Quartz! What a trouble maker!"

Fire's lips pressed together into a thin line. "Yes, well, she's a bit more than a mere trouble maker, but your assessment is technically correct." Fire Agate's chattiness died off after that, and they continued the rest of their journey in silence.

The juxtaposition was disconcerting, but Zircon was relieved it hadn't been worse. Of all the Crystal Gems to be in cahoots with, she supposed it was lucky the one she was with had never actually met the infamous rebellion's leader. Had it been anyone else, they might not have been able to hold their tongue after a statement like that. Even Zircon, knowing all she knew, had trouble maintaining her composure. After all that she’d been through, one thing was abundantly clear to Zircon; _nothing_ anyone on Homeworld knew about Rose Quartz was true.

....

"Wait, this isn't the Kindergarten. Where are you?"

"Steven. Now. Is not. The time."

"Lars? What's happening?"

"Steven! Kind of in the middle of something here."

"If something's happening, maybe I can help." Steven tried to climb down from Lars' back, but Lars grabbed him to prevent him from doing so.

"No!" Lars snapped. "Just, go back through my head. Please?"

"I can't just leave you here to deal with whatever this is by yourself!" Steven objected.

"Shhhh. Quiet. Do you want someone to hear you? If someone catches you they'll -"

"If someone catches me?" Steven whispered. "What if someone catches you?"

"I'm handling it." Lars insisted. Not very effectively, but he wasn't going to tell Steven that.

"At least tell me what it is you're doing here."

Lars let out one long breath. He wasn't going to get this kid to leave without an explanation, was he? "We're in a records room of Yellow Diamond's courthouse, or one of them at least. We're looking for information on your mother and Pink Diamond."

"I could totally help with that!"

"No. You have your answer. I told you what we're doing. Now will you just please leave?"

"You said 'we.' Does that mean the off colors are here too?"

Damn. "No. it’s just me, Zircon and Peridot here."

"Then where are Zircon and Peridot?"

"They're uh…otherwise occupied. Distracting a gem that works here from coming in this room." He decided it would be best if he didn't tell Steven the specifics.

"Well if they're keeping gems from coming in, isn't it safe for me to be here?"

"Steven, no. So help me I will throw you back into my hair myself if you don't go back soon."

"Lars, why is your face on that wall?"

"Don't change the subj- wait, what?"

Sure enough, beyond the shelves Steven was looking through, was a screen showing mugshot-like images of a variety of gems that Lars had subconsciously ignored when he first arrived, and might well have still written off as unimportant if it weren’t for the fact that directly in his line of vision, larger than the rest, was a picture of _him_. It was Lars from before he was pink-ified, but it was unmistakably him. Underneath the picture, the screen displayed more scribbles of Gem writing, though what they said Lars couldn’t guess. Lars didn't remember a picture being taken of him, but it must have been taken during the trial or that brief time that he and Steven were separated and he met those Amethysts (he’d have to remind himself to tell Steven about that particular occurrence at a time when they weren’t in enemy territory). Thoughts tumbled through his head like gemstones in a polisher, and he opted not to unpack the irony in that particular metaphor. In any case, he had barely adjusted to the shock of seeing his face on the Homeworld version of a wanted poster before his attention was drawn by motion in his periphery vision.

“Steven, stay right where you are!” Lars commanded, already having the sense that he would be ignored. He was, and he rushed to follow the boy closer to the wall-sized screen.

It wasn’t merely a wall-sized screen, Lars realised a moment later. Instead the images floated mid-air like some sort of holograms. Lars half expected one of them to shout “Help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only hope!” but they all stayed silent and still, save for the fact that the image of Lars _tracked with their movements_ , as if it knew _exactly_ who was looking at it. Lars filed this fact away in the rapidly growing “Homeworld is weird and totally terrifying” corner of his mind, and decided he was more than content not understanding anything more about how such technology worked. Curiosity killed the cat and all that.

Then Steven, much like a cat, followed an utterly impulsive whim and actually _poked_ the image of Lars. At which point Lars all but gave up and decided there was no use in arguing with the boy over the rational course of action. At least if Steven was going to thoroughly screw up, Lars would be with him every step of the way.

Upon being tapped, the holographic screen shifted files around, making room as it brought to prominence a second file that it deemed significant, this one with two pictures; one of Steven, and one of Rose, presented with it’s own set of scribbled information that was much more extensive than that present on Lars’ file, but probably was not _nearly_ comprehensive enough for someone who was as important as Rose. Hopefully they'd be able to find more information than just this, but it was a start.

There was, of course, still the issue of reading the darn thing.

"You don't happen to be able to read this stuff, can you Steven?"

Steven shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. "I don't know much, but I know my mom's name."

Steven pointed at the bold text near the top of the file. It seemed obvious to Lars now that Steven had pointed it out - of course it stood to reason that something bolded on a file was probably either a title or a name. Maybe he could do something useful with that assumption.

"It's not much," he said, "But it's more than we had before. If only we had some way to copy these files and take them to someone who could read this, if Peridot was here she could probably do some techy stuff to it but..."

Actually, thanks to Peridot, they totally _did_ have a way to do exactly that even without her. As soon as the realization hit him, he ran off in search of the place Peridot had hidden her tablet as Steven watched him with piqued interest.

“Where are you going?”

“To find something Peridot left behind for me,” Lars explained.

When he got back, he raised the tablet to his eye level.

“Oh, Peridot’s tablet! What are you going to do with that?”

In answer, Lars snapped two photos, one for each file.

“I may not be as tech savvy as Peridot, but I at least know how to use a camera,” he said with a sly smile.

Then, with slight trepidation, he tapped the Steven/Rose file in the hopes that doing so would reveal more files about the Quartz.

The holographic computer completely and totally fritzed out on him. For a solid few seconds, the entire thing turned into distressingly bright white lightning-esque static and made a horrible buzzing noise. Was this the Gem blue screen of death? Whatever it was, it was overwhelming his senses. He couldn’t see straight, let alone think straight. Having a fairly decent reference point to compare to, he was pretty sure this was worse than _actual death_.

After the commotion stopped, there was a brief moment where Lars thought he had broken the hologram system, as all of the pictures had disappeared. But he decided it was more like a reboot than a shut down when he noticed that the image of Rose and Steven had moved towards the top corner from the screen. And starting just below that and moving across the screen in a wave, new images of gems were appearing in a systematic fashion. Or were they the same ones as before in a different arrangement? Lars couldn’t tell, but he was sure someone would notice that the screen had been messed with later.

“So much for not leaving a trace,” he muttered.

“Uh, Lars? I think these are all Crystal Gems.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I mean, it sort of makes sense. When you tapped the file on her, it brought up all the files on gems associated with her. But there’s so many that it sort of, overloaded the system.”

Lars looked up at the screen. It absolutely towered over him. He had known Rose had an army. But seeing them all laid out like that was different. All he could think of was the fact that these were all immortal beings who had risked everything to protect his home, and almost all of them were now dead when they weren’t even meant to die in the first place. Homeworld had obliterated them. Somehow, that didn’t make him feel angry. He was tired of feeling angry. It didn’t even make him feel grateful for their sacrifice. Now, all he felt when he saw countless lives that had been snuffed out, was empty. He didn’t even feel sad. Just a dull, aching numbness. What did it mean that death had become so overwhelming and unfathomable to him that he couldn’t even bring himself to feel anything?

But he didn’t say any of that to Steven. What he said was, “That’s a lot of pictures to have to take.”

....

"Case number?"

Fire Agate sat poised in front of her screen, fingers waiting to enter in whatever identification code she was told. Zircon knew that if they were going to be discovered, this would be the most likely time for it. Her powers of rhetoric might be able to trick a gem, but they wouldn't be able to trick a computer. Whatever she said would be cross referenced with the system, so she couldn't just make up a file number up. It had to be real, and it had to be something innocuous that wouldn't raise any red flags. Unfortunately, the only case number that was coming to mind was Rose's, and that was a definite no-go.

"Case identification is beta-2145."

Zircon was momentarily confused at the statement, because she had not opened her mouth to speak. But it had not been her that had said it, it had been Peridot.

Fire's eyes darted between the two gems. "I would advise letting your Zircon speak for you on legal matters, though I assume she's already told you that much." The hint of judgement in her voice did not go unnoticed by Zircon, but she'd rather be thought of as incompetent than have the Agate be suspicious of her, so she was grateful to Peridot for answering the question while she drew a blank. Though how Peridot had come up with an accurate case number off the top of her head, Zircon had no idea.

“Facet numbers?”

This question was easy. For her answer, Blue Zircon made use of a common Zircon adage: an almost-truth is sometimes better than a complete fabrication. It's easier to come up with and more believable. So, Zircon gave the facet number of another Blue Zircon who was made in the same Kindergarten as her. For someone dedicated to truth, she was distressingly good at lying.

“Cut 4CB huh? Tell me, how was your visit to Omicron 3?”

“I wasn’t stationed at Omicron 3, I was stationed at Omicron 4. Omicron 3 is uninhabited.”

Fire gave an approving smirk. “That it is. My mistake.”

Zircon knew it was a trick question. It had to be, right? The Agate did have a sort of "gotcha" tone in her voice. Did that mean that she was suspicious of Zircon after all?

“And what about you, miss I-don’t-even-need-my-limb-enhancers?”

Peridot looked at Zircon, her mouth hanging slightly open, then blinked fiercely as she turned to the Agate, seeming to have made a decision. “Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG, ma’am.”

As Zircon didn't know Peridot's facet number, she couldn't know for sure that Peridot had also lied, but she was pretty sure she had.

“Ah. Your file is quite extensive for someone as young as you. Assigned to the monitoring of a geo-weapon, that’s impressive. Of course you do have multiple cases filed against you. You weren’t lying about that. Not that I thought you did. Why would anyone lie about that?”

Zircon shifted uncomfortably.

“Hmm, let’s see here...incompetency, insubordination, talking back to your superiors...”

Suddenly the Agate burst into laughter. “Oh stars, no wonder the Blue Court isn’t worried about you! You hardly did anything wrong! I’ve been called a clod myself in the past, and I promise you I deserved it every time.”

Zircon’s eyebrows practically jumped off her face, for more reasons than one. Had Peridot actually told the _truth_ about her facet number? And if she had, why was this Agate so nonchalant about it? Surely, Peridot’s file had something more incriminating than insubordination in it?

“I mean, if anything your Agate is the one who should be punished, if she can’t handle some attitude every now and again. And as far as incompetence….well, you’re an Era Two, what do they expect? I’m sure you’re trying your best. Of course, you’ll still have to be put on trial, but I’m sure with such an accomplished lawyer like this one here you have nothing to worry about.”

“Er, yes, I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.” said Peridot, her tone a mixture of relief and disbelief.

Zircon, on the other hand, was still deeply troubled by the Agate’s jovial attitude. Agates weren’t supposed to behave this way, especially not in a courthouse. Courthouses were places of serious business, where gems reputations and livelihoods and sometimes their actual lives were on the line. The weren’t a place of meaningless chit chatter, but that’s all this Agate cared to do. Zircon was impressed that she managed to get anything done, what with being so distracted. This was either an extremely convincing act, or she was actually so oblivious that she didn’t even realize that two fugitives were literally staring her in the face despite it being painfully obvious! It felt a bit like they were cheating, their opponent was so clueless. Zircon couldn’t believe it, but she was starting to think they might get out of this scot-free.

That was, until the exact gem she had been hoping not to run into rounded the corner. A gem that would definitely recognize who she really was.

They spotted each other at almost the same time. Yellow Zircon stopped in her tracks, and her eyes went wide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contrary to what is probably popular belief, I did not drop off the face of the earth, I just took way longer on this chapter than any other chapter. I feel like I'm partially excused for that because this chapter is like, twice as long as most of my other chapters and significantly more complicated. I have to say this little thing called "plot" isn't exactly my strong suit and that's what this chapter consisted of so, there's that. But also, we're getting closer to the school year starting again so I might slow down on writing in general, and I'm sorry about that. I really do want to get this story out as fast as possible, but I also don't want to put out bad content or push myself too much.  
> This chapter maybe stretches the limit of plausibility in some ways, but I hope you like it anyway. I am probably going to wear thin my "coincidentally running into important character" quota in this fic, but it's my fic and I can do what I want! I gave myself a perfect opportunity to bring in Yellow Zircon into the story, it would have been a shame if I didn't take it. But considering I left it on a cliff-hanger you're just going to have to wait some more to find out what she does, mwahahahaha!  
> in the meantime, my current favorite fic I'm reading is called the Stranger in Me and if you aren't reading it, you totally should be!  
> [ **The Stranger in Me**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9500753) (81202 words) by [**Cyberwraith9**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyberwraith9)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks, thanks for reading my fic so far! if you want to talk to me some more, I have a multi-fandom discord chat that needs to be populated. If you're interested, message me on tumblr (same username) and I'll send you an invite. This note will probably eventually disappear when I feel like there are enough people in the chat, so this is a limited time offer!


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